$our$ Cove 

Mer^mabei 




Class _JES_3 5^L 
Book . /i4 &5-Sl 
Copyright }J°. 



9o^. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



D€DICJfCTOn 




a woria of brothers, sisters,— lovers,— 
T aeaicate titese pulsations of my soul, 
witboMt regara to color, country, or con- 
aition of servituae, past or present. 

T reverence you, conservatives, if your conser- 
vatism means Dolding on to tDe Dest and courage 
tDat aares to cut away tDe aeaa-wool 

T reverence you, radicals, if your individualism 
means tbe ultimate ideal of humanity; and you, 
socialists, if your socialism embraces tDe nobler in- 
dividualism of tDe future wDen men and women 
can looR into eacD otDers eyes ani live witDout fear, 
1)umanity is indeed a unit. (Ue rise or fall to- 
getDer, one Source one road — one destiny— T 
am glad. Drop mud and stones. Qive me your 
Dand wDiie T Dumbly, reverently dedicate to a 
universe of Kindred my life and worR. 

mabel. 

Copyright, 1904, by G. E. Littlefleld. 



THE CRAFTMAN'S WORD 



here is a book about love, written for 
love's sake, and made a labor of joy. 
From an author's pen dipped in fluid Spirit, — 

THE true expression OF HER LIFE, IT SO MOVED 

all sorts of people who have heard it read 

from manuscript that some of them proposed 

to co-operate in publishing it ; so i print it. 

And it has been a pleasure to set the types 

AND PUT it through THE PRESS AND BIND IT, 

the love of it grew upon me while working. 

"Who works for glory, missed oft the goal — 
Who works for monjpy coins his very soul. 
Work for the work's sake then, and it may be 
All these things shall be added unto thee." 

To THUS WORK IN COLLABORATION WITH THE AU- 
THOR AND READERS, IS A GLADNESS AND RECOM- 
PENSE WHICH NO MERELY COMMERCIAL INTEREST 
CAN EVER EQUAL. It IS SIMPLE HONESTY AIDING 

the expression of sincerity ; it is reaching 
toward the new freedom which is not wan- 
ton ; it is a foretaste of the coming democ- 
racy which is the socialistic individualism of 
doing things in fellowship with the univer- 
sal; and this makes work a divine art and 
the craftsman a worker in paradise. 

George Elmp:r Littlefield. 



1 SOUL'S im LETTER 



BY MABEL .; 



^ ImJ^* 



Price $i.oo, Postpaid 

Published by The Ariel Press 

Westwood Mass. 

1904 




ONGRESSKI^ /U 

Keceived f \'A '-' * 



"it was not cut short ; and in the 
end it learnt, through tears and 
much pain, that holiness is an infi- 
nite compassion for others ; that 
greatness is to take the common 
things of life and walk truly among 

them ; that happiness is a great 

love and much serving." 

Olive Schreiner. 



A SOUL'S LOVE LETTER 



"And so I write, and write and write, 
Just for the sake of writing to you, dear. 




EAR ARTHUR:— 

My soul's friend-yes, 
I believe I can, with 
perfect abandon, tell 
you all. There are 
moments when you 
seem, in reality, my 
other self. I feel it 
will bring relief to lay my breast up close 
to your own while we mutually feel the 
beating of the Inlinite Heart through an 
"uncut cord." 

Can I tell you all, all, from infancy to 
widowhood, up through the baby-girl days — 
up through the serious sorrows of child- 
hood's inexperience, — misty maidenhood — 
wondering, dreaming young womanhood, 
marriage conventional, widowhood, and at 
last ? 



A soul's love letter 



As you already know, Arthur, I was born 
and bred on one of the large rough farms 
of western New York. It must be about 
the year 1870 that I first remember myself, 
a chubby little tot, roaming about in pur- 
suit of happiness — my inalienable right. 
Abstract thoughts of life and liberty came 
later, but for the time, like the ordinary, 
robust baby, I absolutely sought and de- 
manded happiness. The selfish, coercive 
spirit was not wanting, and my parents no 
doubt felt relief, if they thought about the 
matter at all. I should not die, as the good 
children do ; but they would raise up unto 
themselves a daughter, and mother should 
have, what she so much needed, some one 
to help her. 

In pursuit of happiness! A lisping tod- 
dler — daring to venture forth on such a 
quest! Poor baby! Wonderment, even then, 
why all the beautiful spools and buttons 
must be taken out before they gave me the 
empty boxes ? 

Nevertheless, I grew and waxed strong. 
Four other children came to my parents, — 
two brothers older, a brother and a sister 
younger. I often catch myself looking at 



A soul's love letter 



little children and wondering if life means 
something of satisfaction to them. We hear 
so much about the joys of childhood — as 
if a child could scarcely be a child, and 
not be happy. 

I do not remember myself as a happy 
child. No love was ever manifest upon 
that old farm, and I believe here rested the 
secret of my child-hunger. Nobody ever 
kissed anybody, no one ever said a love- 
word. It seemed all work and worry. Why 
didn't some one stop long enough to say, 
"My darling baby!" I was so lonesome, so 
tiny, and so stranger-like! But they were 
all too busy, and so the tragedy went on. 
Arthur, I believe no suffering can quite 
equal that of a child. It has not learned 
by experience the law of universal utility, 
which comes with more mature analysis. 

Yes, the strenuous life had stridden out 
there upon that old farm. Milk pans and 
milk pails were there : butter to make, bread 
to bake, stockings to mend. These, with 
the necessary scoldings and whippings left 
no place for love and caresses among the 
seven beings, two elders and five juniors, 
who stayed several years at that given point 



Of little plaintive voices, innocent, I hear life— life !' 




ROSS LOTS" to the country 
school house that stood on a 
corner of the farm, was the 
next turn in experience. I 
now came in conta6l with 
the outside world, and began a deeper study 
of man's relation to man. I can see that 
old school room now, with its home-made 
desks, painted a slate-blue, and further dec- 
orated with leadpencils and jack-knives. 

I can see those rows of grinning urchins, 
who came in from the various nooks and 
corners of the "deestri6t" — what reverence 
I had, at this period, for the "big" boys 
and girls who did those examples in long 
division on the blackboard, more puzzling 
to my childish mind than were the Egyp- 
tian hieroglyphics to Champollion ! 

My envy and admiration were much ex- 
ercised over the buxom beauty of Edna and 
Cora, the two belles of the school, who re- 
ceived so much honor and attention. Well, 
Emerson says we can lose reverence in 
things without losing our reverence. 

I say praise be to that retained reverence 
that through much jostling inclined me more 



A SOUI.'S LOVE LETTER 



and more to "hitch my wagon to a star." 
It was at this period that I told my first 
lie. It was no cherrj^-tree affair. I simply 
wanted to see my name coupled in writing 
with the name of Archie Brown, my most 
admired "gentleman friend." Others had 
their names so written, — I must have mine. 
The temptation was too great, and so I 
wrote what I wanted on the blue-drab of 
the entry door. My satis fa6lion was small 
compared with my discomfort and chagrin, 
when a torturing rival discovered my weak- 
ness and folly. I declared, emphatically, I 
never wrote any such "horrid thing," — I 
said I "just hated" Archie Brown — and then 
I cried, partly from sham.e, partly because 
of the lies I had told. Poor womankind ! 
From my mother I had heard about the 
lake of fire awaiting the bad ones of earth — 
I trembled with fear. Then I remembered 
my father had said the place was a hoax, 
like all the other do6lrines taught by "chick- 
en-eating" preachers. And while I hoped 
my father was right, I was in hell, but I 
didn't know. I didn't recognize the place 
because I thought blisters were only made 
by literal fires. Poor humankind ! 




''But I could not hide 
My quickening inner life from those at watch. 
They saw a light at the window, now and then, 
They had not set there. Who had set it there?" 

HERE was a distin6l phase 
of my child-life, Arthur, that 
you may think unique, if not 
altogether unnatural. I was 
given to moods resembling 
depression, though that term does not quite 
define my feeling. Usually these came when 
I was lying awake morning or evening, 
the scene ending with tears and sobbing. 
Sometimes ni}^ mother found me so, and to 
her natural questionings I could give no 
rational answers. Analysis was beyond me 
then. I think I understand better now. 

Father regarded the New York World, 
and the county newspaper, sprinkled in with 
Ingersoll's le6tures, as the essential home 
reading. From one of these sources he read 
aloud, such spare moments as he found, 
which were not many, certainly. 

Like Prince Gautama, a great burden 
came to rest upon my heart. There was 
so much wrong and suffering in the world. 
Nobody seemed to love anybody anywhere. 



A SOUI.'S LOVE LETTER I I 



Why, why did they do so ? Why were they 
not good? Why did they all prey upon 
each other? Why did not some one tell 
them if they would only love one another, 
how happy they would all be, and nobody 
be hurt any more? 

I am very grateful for these experiences 
when I look back, now. I believe these 
touches came from the instin6l that some- 
times manifests itself in great art rhythm, 
attesting the persistence and reality of the 
good and beautiful. Perhaps it might prop- 
erly be called the very Messianic instin6t 
itself, in embryo. 



''They pass away, 
Other themes demand thy lay, 
Thou art no more a child." 




HE pleasantest experiences of 
this time were those when 
uncles and aunts came, with 
cousins of all ages; or, when 
two or three times a year 
we were all bundled into the big sleigh in 
winter, or the "democrat" wagon in summer, 
for a day or two of outing at grandfather's. 
Everything was so novel and interesting 
at grandpa's. Even the cows had their own 
distin6l individuality over against our "Cher- 
ry'' and "Stub-horn.'' The milk at grand- 
father's had a peculiar flavor all its own — 
milked into wooden instead of tin pails, and 
strained through a cloth instead of a strainer, 
as at home. The bed-sinque, the rag carpet, 
the hair sofa, and each piece of cheap bric- 
a-brac were fraught with impressiveness. 

There were bees humming, ducks wad- 
dling and turkeys strutting, all so wonderful, 
so wonderful! I remember on one occasion 
the old gobbler very early took a dislike to 
the bright red, print dress I wore, and kept 
me fleeing for safety before his autocratic 



13 

presence. The great shaggy shepherd dog 
was a world of wonder in himself. With 
children as with grown-ups, the familiar, the 
commonplace cease to be wonderful, mag- 
ical. Curiosity, wonderment, worship of the 
far away, lure us on. In new scenes and 
strange faces we hope to find more lasting 
satisfaction. Our landscapes are not so beau- 
tiful, the men we meet are not so wise or 
loving — we will wander afar. Poor "per- 
ennial globe trotters !" Poor happiness-pur- 
suers ! It was later when I went to live 
at grandfather's and a grass-widow aunt 
scolded me for breaking the glass milk- 
pitcher, and grandma made me sit a half 
hour with folded arms, while grandpa read 
the Bible and offered prayers, that I cried 
to go back home. As Sam Foss says: "I 
want to go somewhere, — I want to get 
back ! is the shuttle-cock cry of the heart." 



*'It is not what a man is, but what he would be, 
that exalts him." 




OOD old puritanical grandma 
would put to shame Matt 
Quay or Tom Piatt, when she 
wire-pulled grandpa into go- 
ing down to see Electra, my 
mother, and taking me home. A very mild 
suggestion of the kind at tirst brought forth 
a series of ejaculations : 

"I hain't no night-hawk, I hain't! Got 
to git them oats in 'fore it rains. Some 
folks ain't never contented else the're a- 
chasin' off somewheres." 

Good old grandma knew, — she hadn't 
heard anything about language being used 
by men to conceal their thoughts, but she 
said softly: 

"Get ready just as fast as you can." 

We were none too early in our prepara- 
tions. Old sorrel "Jim" soon came lumber- 
ing up to the door, drawing a freshly greased 
buggy, and grandfather ghouted: 

"Sha'n't wait two minutes for ye! Pile 
in ; we ought to a' been on the road an 
hour ago." 

In we quickly clambered, and off Jim 



A soul's love letter 15 

shambled, on his fourteen mile drive, while 
grandpa beguiled the wa}^ with a character- 
istic humming tune, all his own, broken in 
upon every now and then by ^'G'lang, lazy 
bones!" or "G'lang, saphead!" When Jim 
responded mildly to the gentlest tap of the 
old stub whip, grandfather said, "Then 
g'lang, when I tell ye!'' 

When we reached our destination, the 
greetings were hardly over before grand- 
father began to talk of going home, the oats 
and the rain. But he smiled when the boys 
commenced to dig bait, and make general 
preparations for a fishing excursion. 

He took great delight in telling of his 
early prowess as a sportsman or fisherman. 
Grandmother's New England piety kept her 
exa6f to the letter and she constantly a6led 
as a balance wheel while grandfather re- 
lated his adventures. 

On one occasion, when he told of the mar- 
vellous "ketch" of tish he had once 'taken 
from the Alleghany river, grandma disput- 
ing, he said with great excitement : 

"I ain't goin' to give in! Didn't Nancy 
bring down two pails to hold 'em all ?" 

Grandma replied very seriously: 



1 6 A soul's love letter 

"Well, — mebbe. It would be jest as 
wicked ter tell it a little tew small as it 
would ter tell it a little tew big." 

They both fell asleep at last, at a good 
old age. Grandma conscientious, and grand- 
pa too, with all his exaggerations. The gen- 
tle, suggestive manner with which he used 
the whip on old Jim's back, was to me 
homely evidence of a sympathetic heart. 




Oh, there are brighter dreams than those of Fame, 
Which are the dreams of love." 

HE semi-annual donation for 
the poorly paid Methodist 
preacher, who preached in 
the school house every two 
weeks, was a great social 
fundion for the country people of the time. 
Such an event was approaching, the very 
afternoon of the evening was upon us, and 
each family and each member of each fam- 
ily was busy and breathless. 

Mother was to bake a cake — a real fros- 
ted one, and she was afraid of her luck. 
She decided upon a tall pyramid, as they 
were the fad among country housekeepers. 
Susan Green, the brag cook of the neigh- 
borhood, had made one at the last donation 
one layer higher than her ambitious neigh- 
bors, and for six long months had been 
alternately envied and worshipped as the 
lioness of the hour. 

I heard my mother express her very de- 
cided feeling upon the subject, often. She 
said she thought if her " man " had a mort- 
gage on his place, she would leave tall cake- 
baking to women whose husbands didn't 



i8 



owe anything. She further intimated the 
bare possibility that poor, deaf John, the 
other half of Susan, fared no better than he 
should at the hands of this unthrifty sharer 
of his bed and board. Still others hinted 
at something worse in the life of the gar- 
rulous Susan than riotous wasting of sub- 
stance. All the sweetness, all the bitterness, 
found in petty scandal, or neighborhood gos- 
sip, came to these good-meaning country 
dames over that one extra layer of pyra- 
mid cake. 

Poor Susan's ambition came near being 
her downfall in the community. I think 
now the instru6tion of Cardinal Woolsey, 
well a6led upon, would have saved her many 
a withering glance from her piqued sisters : 

"Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition. 
By that sin fell the angels. How can, then, the 
image of his Maker, hope to win by it?" 

Supper is nearly ready at the donation. 
The men of the congregation are gathered 
with great dignity in the big "spare room" 
while the worthy women folk dilligently 
apply themselves to culinary arrangements. 
Later day salads and tutti-frutti dishes are 



A soul's love letter 19 

not here, but other good things are revealed 
hidden away in those mammoth baskets, and 
the odor of steeping coffee reaches us 3'oung 
people playing *' Snap-and-catch 'em" and 
"Needle's eye," in the hall-like chamber 
above. 

"The young folks are to eat first with the 
preacher.'' So says Martha Brown, who 
orders the ceremonies with busy, bustling 
importance. 

Lo ! he approaches — a boy ! — a young 
man! — a something, anyway, wearing no 
merino skirt, like I did myself, but a real 
pair of pants! It couldn't be! O blissful 
moment! He really was asking me to sup- 
per with him. Those downy lips said it. 
I saw them move nervously. 'Twas true! 
Do not laugh, — I was almost thirteen ! 

I was a woman really now. I could wear 
my dresses long hereafter, and assume new 
dignities. True, he wnsn't the one I would 
have chosen out of the crowd of boys. I 
liked Archie better, for his hair was black 
and curled, while Anson's was light and so 
straight it pitched awkwardly over his fore- 
head. But then, what would one have? I 
was chosen by some one. A new, delightful. 



20 A soul's love LETTER 

even thrilling experience was upon me. 
Onl}^ last year I called upon this light- 
haired, freckle- faced youth of other days, — 
now a prosperous lawyer of Buffalo. The 
world had rubbed off all the greenness, and 
he has money, it is said, — yea, even filthy 
lucre has he! But he could not awaken 
again in my heart — I know — one momen- 
tary heart-throbbing, like he gave me when 
we ate together, that autumn night, our 
pumpkin pie, preserves and pyramid cake. 




"A youth who bore, mid snow and ice, 
A banner with this strange device, 

Excelsior." 

T fourteen I went out to teach 
my first school and earn 
my first dollar. Appalling 
thought ! Other souls were 
to receive impetus and in- 
struction from a child just in her teens. 
But what of that ? Nature drops her su- 
preme gift,a fresh new plastic being, into the 
arms of girls as young. 

A strange careless seeming old dame is 
Nature, but she knows her own, and she 
never flurries or gets red in the face. O 
great matrix of infinitude in which we and 
all things are cradled so safely, from whence 
comes fear and restlessness? Even in the 
house where I went to room myself, with 
food and fuel brought from home, — even 
there I found a girl of my own age, mar- 
ried to a man of thirty, and about to be- 
come a mother. 

I do not accuse my father of any mer- 
cenary spirit in putting me into this school; 
though having burdened himself with new 
indebtedness for a land purchase that made 



22 



him poorer, I remember he gladly appro- 
priated the check for my wages and I never 
saw it more. I suppose it was *' benevolent 
assimilation." High sounding words, and 
good phrasing, you know, have covered a 
multitude of sins from time immemorial. 
When I cried myself to sleep the first night 
of school teaching, I had myself chiefly to 
thank for the pickle I was in. I wanted to 
teach. I had played "teach school" many 
times at home. 

I had painted my picture. I would have a 
line time! What satisfaction to ring the bell 
and see every little soul obey automatically! 
Order is heaven's first law. I could see them 
sitting there before me, so demure, consci- 
entiously waiting to do my slightest bidding, 
and I would walk among them with the 
feeling of Divine right. 

Ideas founded on these premises have 
brought crowned heads to the block and 
blockheads to crowns and other trouble. My 
chief motive w^as ambition, with perhaps a 
sprinkling of high aspiration, but I desire 
greatly to speak the truth to you. There is 
such a gulf between these two attitudes of 
mind, though the world seems not yet to 



A soul's love letter 23 

discriminate carefully between them. As- 
piration is a latent soul-quality. I had not 
yet been whipped into the kingdom. Like 
others before me, I had commenced to "beat 
my wings against the bars of environment 
about me, and I wanted a finer life." 

I would read, earn money, and father 
would let me go to the academy. I would 
"be somebody." Father's mother, Laura 
Beecher, came from New Haven, he told 
us, and belonged to the original stock of 
"brainy Beechers." I had never seen this 
grandmother, who died early, but old pion- 
eers spoke of her as a lady "born and bred." 
I believed in kingly pedigree, then, and my 
blood tingled. I have grown to believe more 
in the One Life, and the utility of suffering. 
No soul can boast over another. Souls are 
not comparable; for they are of one stuff — 
plastic, evolutionary, compelled by necessity 
to become great Nature's democrats. 

I need not go into the details of that four 
months of teaching. When March was over, 
and I didn't have the tires to build cold 
mornings, and the bread and butter odor, so 
characteristic of school rooms, had departed, 
life became monotonously bearable. 



24 

Often a stubborn girl or mischievous boy 
made me fearful of more serious trouble, 
for I had been told the teacher before me 
was obliged to leave an unfinished term. 
Though sometimes severely tried, still I had 
my great hope strong within me: I would 
bide my time, go to school, and *'be some- 
body.'' 

Something ludicrous, something pathetic, 
touches me when I look back and see that 
little girl teacher, going to and fro in her 
barren round. My mother had neither time 
nor talent for dressmaking. I remember the 
dress I wore most of the time during that 
term. An old alpaca of mother's, made over 
by some neighbor thought clever with the 
needle ; she had made my dress, overskirt 
and basque, trimmed with plaiting. I had 
grown since the making and it had become 
what might properly be called shortwaisted 
and out of date. 

Never mind, I would soon be through, 
have money and perhaps sometime go to 
college. If I had no new and stylish dress 
nevertheless I had my great hope. No one 
could daunt my spirit or take that from me. 




'*And lived my life, and thought my thoughts 

and prayed 
My prayers without a vicar." 

NE day a carriage halted be- 
fore the school house door. 
I recognized my dude cousin 
Frank, from Fieldsboro', who 
called me out to be introduced 
to two beautiful ladies, seated behind. 

"These are our cousins who have come 
from the east to spend a few weeks among 
the New York relatives. They are mother 
and daughter, Cousin Mary Curtis, — Cousin 
Caroline Beecher Curtis." 

There they sat, and there stood I, self- 
conscious, blushing and stammering. It was 
Friday afternoon, and "would I not ride 
home with them?" They were going to 
stay a week at my home. I soon dismissed 
my school and seated myself beisde Cousin 
Frank, in front. I knew they were looking 
at that short-waisted alpaca basque, and it 
hurt, O how it hurt! Then I thought of 
my hope, and I think I lelt as Samantha 
did when she said Josiah told her she didn't 
have any brains. She didn't care, for she 
knew she had! 



26 A soul's love letter 

A tragedy was going on, Arthur. How I 
suffered during the visit of those city cous- 
ins! They had real culture — what Matthew 
Arnold rightly names sweetness and light. 
They talked about our beautiful hills and 
the advantages of rural life, but I couldn't 
see it. It all seemed ver}' commonplace and 
mean to me; I seemed chained to a death-in- 
life existence. I almost loathed myself. I 
had not asked to come, but some inevitable 
necessity had taken me out of the unknown 
and placed me here. I had the blood of my 
beautiful and cultured cousin — I almost felt 
that I longed more than she for the "ideal, 
better called the real;" but here we were, 
alike, yet diverse. Was there a God ? Was 
there justice in the world ? Perhaps not. My 
father was right — for even mortals were not 
so unkind to mortals. I had not suffered 
enough. It was a long time with much to 
endure before I found a sure anchor. 

That week's visit was a week of tears for 
me. My one word to my cousin when we 
separated was, "I'll be somebody yet, 
Carrie." 

I had life, I had liberty, I would yet find 
happiness. 




^'Sublimest danger, over which none weeps, 
When any young, wayfaring soul goes forth 
Alone, unconscious of the perilous road. 
The day-sun dazzling in his limpid eyes. 
To thrust his own way, he an alien, through the 
world of books." 

OUSIN Caroline Beecher had 
gone, but her influence had 
left its impression. My long- 
ing for better things was in- 
creased tenfold while the 
obstru(5lions and impediments in my path 
seemed numberless. If I could gain access 
to proper literature. But who was to guide 
me, and where were the books to be had? 
Some one told me of an old library, con- 
taining a few volumes, the property of the 
school district, and I hunted it up. I found 
the books piled away in the corner of an 
attic room. 

I wish memory would serve me to give 
the title of every book in the pile. I found 
one that interested me greatly. It was inten- 
ded to show bad people how bad they were, 
and frighten them into being good. It con- 
tained many bright-colored pi6lures, in har- 
mony with the picture opposite the title-page 



A soul's love letter 



which represented the devil with a horn in 
the middle of his forehead and a long liz- 
zard-like tail, finished with a fork. 

I thought of the one lie I had told, but 
I did not feel very much of a shiver, for I 
commenced to believe father was all right 
and there was a mistake somewhere. I se- 
lected two books: a life of Henry Clay, and 
Locke "On the Human Understanding," 
both old-fashioned, russet leather-covered, 
printed in small type and smelling of dust. 
I tried to become interested, but with the 
odor of the yellow pages and the fine tj^pe 
I found the road to erudition uninviting 
enough. I was so hungry to glean a morsel 
of knowledge somewhere that I took them 
down frequently from the chestnut mantel 
back of the kitchen stove. Explain to me 
why a dog gnaws at an old dry bone, and 
I will explain the satisfaction that came to 
me from even holding those old volumes. 

One day I came into contact with a book 
called "Edna Browning," written by Mary J. 
Holmes. A neighbor had received it from 
a young woman living in Fieldsboro, — 
would she let me read it? She would. I 
think I never ate nor slept until I had seen 



A soul's love letter 29 

the poor young Edna through all her ex- 
periences. O what a bliss 'twould be to 
have all such books one could devour! I 
returned the book, telling its owner I should 
never rest contented until I had read .every 
book ever written by Mary J. Holmes. My 
father said it was "made up stuff'' — all 
stories were made up — a lie. He never 
wanted me to spend my time reading things 
unless they were really true. I wondered 
greatly like the little Lucy, who was told 
by her mother she must eat no more jam. 
"Mamma," said the little philosopher, "Why 
is it that everything we want to do is either 
wicked or will make us sick? 

A few months passed. An aunt came to 
see us, — a woman proud., who wanted to 
"keep up," as she called it. I told her I 
was exceedingly ambitious — so were Caesar 
and Susan Green. She said she had a book 
written by a man named Shakespeare. She 
would lend it to me, for all the people who 
"keep up" must know something of this 
man Shakespeare. She said she couldn't 
see why they made such a fuss about him, 
for she had read the book a little, and in 
some places the language was not fit to 



30 A SOUL S LOVE LETTER 

be heard. I asked her if it was '^made up 
stuff," as father was very much opposed to 
anything made up. She said she didn't 
really know, but it didn't matter if other 
people considered it the thing whether it 
was true or not. So I was sent the book, 
and thus introduced to the myriad-minded 
one, who knew all the heart's gamut to per- 
fection, and played with its mysteries as 
Emerson says little children play with grey- 
beards, and in churches. 

I was no fourteen-year-old prodigy, and 
the full appreciation of my newly discov- 
ered treasure came by degrees. So much 
the better, for the source seemed exhaust- 
less. I was in a new world, with compan- 
ions to satisfy every mood and fancy known 
to human experience. In sunny times I 
could sport fancy-free with Celia and Rosa- 
lind, in the forest of Arden; but I much 
loved to live among those who suffered, 
and hours were spent in agony with Hamlet 
and Desdemona. 

A serious illness, occasioned by a fall, 
brought me close to the border line. My 
mother came to tell me tearfully of my con- 
dition, and the possible result. I cannot 



A soul's love letter 31 

explain my feelings even yet, but I was 
almost happy. 

I was facing the old, unanswered ques- 
tion — "If a man die shall he live again?" 
But I was not afraid. Intuitively I felt I 
could trust the Universe, and then the old 
experiences had tried me so. If we were 
given another chance, perhaps I could come 
into an environment more congenial, like 
fortunate Cousin Carrie, and so I waited, 
patient, till the crisis was over, and life 
forced me back once more into its mystic 
mazes. 




''I did not die, . . . slowly, by degrees 

I awoke, rose up, . . Where was I? In the world; 

For uses therefore I must count worth while." 

EAR old Jason Bumpus, with 
his jolly, good-natured spouse 
Olive, lived in a cabin up on 
the hillside. Five acres of 
stony soil, a cow, a pig, some 
chickens and a mule, were the external 
means of sustenance for this old couple. 
And yet I have never seen but one other 
case of ideal conjugal bliss. The cases were 
unlike in nearly every particular, except that 
both lived the unconventional and simple 
life, and both were contented and happy. 
Junk collecting and tin peddling with the 
mule, yielded an extra penny now and then, 
but on the whole this happy pair lived 
above the strenuous. 

Everybody laughed at and derided old 
Jason. The boys played pranks on him for 
sport, and still his old eyes were always 
sparkling and his face was always smiling. 
His form was tall and angular and his voice 
was a sharp falsetto, but he carried about 
somewhere under that old slouch hat and 
weather-beaten coat the secret for which 



A SOUL S LOVE LETTER 33 

most of US waste many years of energy. 

I was sitting on the old porch settee, con- 
valescing slowly from my illness. The doc- 
tor had said I might never be strong again, 
and what then would become of my glorious 
hope ? Tears came to my eyes, but I brushed 
them away, and looked up to see old Jason, 
mule and all, approaching. 

"Hello! little gal," he sang out, in his 
high peepy voice, "How you gettin' along? 
Don't feel very chipper yet, I reckon, — 
guess I'll let Bill rest a minute while we 
visit," he said, coming up the plank walk 
and patting my head. 

"You've had a pretty hard time, hain't 
ye ? Look pale and kinder unhappy fer a 
gal as oughter be rosy and cherky. Wouldn't 
ye like to visit a little with an old man ? 
Seems like sometimes it does a body good 
to talk things over with some one." 

I had had so little of demonstrated affec- 
tion in my fifteen years that the old man's 
tender concern won my confidence at once. 
I told him of my great hope and what the 
do6lor had said. 

"Well, well, it's just's I thought, ye want 
to pick a few stars, don't ye? I tuck my 



34 A soul's love letter 

turn at star gazin' once. Animals, babies 
and wild injuns put a deal of stock in big 
glitterin' things. I guess if we could pick 
a star 'twouldn't be what we thought it was 
when we got it. It'd be either too hot or 
too cold for us, or, mebbe 'twould be too 
big, and we'd be glad to let it go darn quick." 

"But,'' I said, timidly, "I don't want pretty 
dresses and things so much as I want to 
read the great books and see the great peo- 
ple of the world." 

My old friend gave a little whistle and con- 
tinued, "Gol darned if blood ain't thicker n 
water. Well, little gal, I'm glad 'tain' nothin' 
worse'n books and folks ye're arter. Do ye 
see Bill out there? Well, when ye've seen 
Bill ye've seen about all there is to muledom. 
Bill's older and scragglier'n some on 'em, but 
he's a mule every inch of him, ears and all, 
and what's true of Bill is true of all other 
jackasses the world over.'' 

"Say," he said, abruptly changing the sub- 
ject, git ye sunbunnit and ride up to the top 
of the hill with me. I'll show ye somethin' 
worth goin' to see.'' 

We were soon toiling over the muddy, 
rough road, my companion enthusiastically 



A soul's love letter 35 

pointing to every evidence of Nature's 
spring awakening. 

When we reached the highest part of 
the hill, he carelessly left old Bill standing 
while he lifted me over the rail fence and 
led me to the top of a great rock. Here, 
eagerly, he pointed out, with boyish pleas- 
ure, a small patch of white anemone, the 
first of the year. 

Grand old man! When I look back to 
that day and see the innocent animation 
beaming on his countenance, while his trem- 
bling hands put into my lap those early 
spring treasures, my heart swells. Am I 
guilty of sacrilege when involuntarily I 
compare this simple child-man to the so- 
called great men of the earth, whose faces 
often express an animation found in less 
innocent sources, and whose hands are not 
always unstained with the blood of their 
fellow men? 

I made many pilgrimages to the simple 
home of my friends, Olive and Jason. That 
little cabin was no mere point in space — 
its vista opened to infinitude. Here was 
love, wisdom, reverence. The touch and 
spontaneity that I missed at my father's I 



t;6 a soul's love letter 

found with these simple people, and very 
soon the gracious and soothing influences 
brought my mind and body back to a more 
normal condition. 

What bearing my associations at this 
period had upon my later mental attitudes, 
I cannot say. Complex, — more complex, — 
most complex ! But surely the secret is 
hidden from many who would be wise and 
revealed unto babes and sucklings. 




'*We drop the golden cup at Here's foot, 
And swoon back to earth, and find ourselves 
Face down among the pine cones, cold with dew 
While the dogs bark, and many a shepherd scoffs 
* What's now to come to the youth?'" 

HEN fall came I talked with 
mother about the pra6licabil- 
ity of my going to Fieldsboro 
to learn the work in some 
dress -making establishment. 
I could never face the outside world in the 
quaint garb I usually wore, — and I must 
somehow find my way out into life, the 
swash and the swirl. Mother fell in with 
my idea, but said father might obje6l, as he 
generally did to all plans of the women folks. 
I finally gathered up courage and broached 
the matter to him. I told him I would find 
a place to work for my board, nights and 
mornings, so he consented to my going. I 
gathered my personal effe(5fs together into 
an old hair trunk, with a broken lock, and 
waited to catch a ride to the village, eleven 
miles distant. An uncle from near Fields- 
boro, who had been visiting friends on Qua- 
ker Hill, halted for dinner one day, and gave 
me my opportunity. We stood the trunk on 



38 

end between the dashboard and our feet 
and were soon on our way. 

When we reached our destination I found 
myself in a land of uncles, aunts and cousins, 
but I very soon felt awkward and uncom- 
fortable. I almost despaired of farther pur- 
suing my enterprise. Everybody was busy 
with fall work, and I almost found myself 
thrust upon them, helpless and dependent. 
The aunt whose milk pitcher I had broken, 
and who was at heart a sympathetic though 
impulsive woman, left off cleaning house 
and canning long enough to take me to town 
in search of a place as an apprentice. The 
lirst place we applied did not want a girl 
so early in the season; the second had all 
the help needed; and the third was going 
to close the shop on account of ill health. 
We finally found a second-class dressmaker 
who would take me in. We looked about 
some time for a place to work nights and 
mornings, and at last got comfortable quar- 
ters with a dear old lady who was suffering 
from catara6t and needed a girl to assist. 

I commenced work at once. The shop 
overlooked the main street that ran from 
the town to the Institute on the hill. Every 



A soul's love letter 39 

day I was tantalized by the sight of the 
students passing too and fro with their 
books. A brilliant bevy of rosy school girls 
is a pretty sight to me now, but then they 
were a torture to my envious heart. When 
I spoke modestly of my cherished hope, I 
was derided and the head dressmaker jest- 
ingly promised to make my graduating 
dress, free of charge. 

It was at this shop that I met my first 
congenial spirit. Helen Parker, a girl of 
eighteen, lived with her widowed mother, 
in two cosy rooms rented from the dress- 
maker. I think we were drawn together in 
a musical way. Helen had a piano, — she 
invited me into the little home, we sang and 
played simple duets together and our friend- 
ship grew into fondness. We commenced 
reading together, borrowing books of poems 
from whom we might. When two souls 
stand on a common ground of insight and 
understanding does it not always result in 
a feeling of kinship? It may be two men, 
it may be a woman and a man, it may be 
an old woman and a young girl, or it may 
be as in our case, two young girls; but love 



40 

is the result. This is the love that knows 
not age nor sex nor condition, for it deals 
with realities and its governing law is affin- 
ity. I wage no warfare against the many 
other emotions men label " love," but, as 
Hubbard would say, I know someone who 
has tried them all and affirms the genuine- 
ness of the genuine. On pleasant evenings 
we rambled off into the meadows, I walk- 
ing slowly for Helen was lame from birth. 
Sometimes we rowed on the creek till dark, 
and on Sundays reached the woods a mile 
away. We talked over our hopes and fears, 
together planned to do and to be sometime — 
were truly soul companions. 

One evening Helen spoke of a concert 
to be given at the Institute, and we con- 
cluded to attend. It was the first entertain- 
ment I had ever witnessed outside of school 
exhibitions at home. No great artist I have 
ever seen since impressed me as did those 
girl and boy performers at Fieldsboro Insti- 
tute that prize concert night. The Princi- 
pal's daughter, a pretty girl of my own age, 
sang in a clear sweet voice, "Wait till the 
clouds roll by," a song popular at the time. 
My emotions almost overcame me. The 



A SOUI.'S LOVE LETTER 4 1 

words are still echoing within my brain : 

'^Oh my Jamie, Oh my Jamie, 

Bide the time a wee ; 

Surely lanes must have their turning 

Ere the travellers dee. 

Bide the time in patience, Jamie, 

Looking to the sky ; 

Waiting like my love waits, Jamie, 

Till the clouds roll by." 

What a gulf there seemed between that 
fluffy, lacy, white-muslined Annie Raymond 
and myself ! 

How thirsty I was! I had received many 
rustic compliments when I sang at home 
and played my own half impromptu accom- 
paniments upon the parlor organ. But the 
artist soul within me had never been touched. 
How I longed to sing to rest the burdened 
brothers and sisters of the world ! Ye sor- 
did devotees of commercialism, cast into 
one side of God's great balance all the un- 
earned increment of the money kings of 
the earth, and I will tip the beam with one 
ideal thought — one soul aspiration — thrown 
into the opposite pan. When shall society 
give attention to these wasted resources of 
humanity's wealth, and by cultivation cause 



42 A soul's love letter 

the fallow fields and arid deserts of the 
common people to give up a full harvest 
for the world's soul food ? 

Helen and I had a real lovers' parting at 
the end of the season when she and her 
mother moved away ; but we wrote fre- 
quently, and some of those letters I treas- 
ure still. I marvel at their universal in- 
sight when I read them over now. One, 
of the early summer, the year after, contains 
those beautiful lines from Lowell's "Vision 
of Sir Launfal,'' 

"What is so rare as a day in June? 

Then, if ever, come perfe6l days ; 

Then heaven tries the earth if it be in tune. 

And over it softly her warm ear lays, 

Joy comes, grief goes, v^^e know not how ; 

Everything is happy now ; 

Everything is upward striving, 

*Tis easy now for the heart to be true, 

As for grass to be green, or skies to be blue, 

*Tis the natural way of living." 



'*Look thou into thy own heart and write, 
Yes, into life's deep stream," 




WAS to go away to school. 
I was eighteen and father 
had consented at last to one 
term in Fieldsboro Institute. 
In stri6l truth I felt one term 
away at school would revolutionize my 
whole mental and moral fibre. "Away at 
school" was a far reaching phrase, — magic 
was in those brick walls that I had gazed 
on so often with awe and longing. 

When I walked up the gravel path, and en- 
tered the office to meet Dr. Raymond, there 
were traces of tears on my cheeks. Mrs. 
Raymond came to take me to my room 
where I found another girl sharing it. I was 
afraid my roommate might be a stuck up city 
girl, so I was glad that Emma Woodruff 
was a modest country product, like myself. 
We were both bashful, but we grew tired 
of sitting there looking at each other, so 
before the bell rang for dinner, we had told 
each other where we came from, learned 
we were of the same age, both had taught 
school, and were to study the same courses. 
The bell rang. We both started and tim- 



44 

idly made for the dining room. I was glad 
we were the first to appear on the scene, 
though I wondered why the others seemed 
so lacking in promptness. I had not learned 
that a boarding school dining room is not 
unlike a church in this respe6l : the quality 
place great value on being tardy. Indeed, 
in many instances, I believe tardiness is 
supposed to represent the only great quality 
of said quality. When we had waited some 
I ventured to remark that perhaps there was 
some mistake, and we were hesitating over 
the matter when two older students entered, 
chatting gaily about vacation experiences. 
In flocked more students, also the digni- 
fied faculty; all took seats at the eight ta- 
bles and dinner progressed. I had never 
eaten in a public place before and it all 
dazzled me. I was glad of the clatter of 
the dishes, and the confident talk of the 
students around me. I watched to see how 
others did. I was afraid to swallow for fear 
of choking. I thought in spite of myself 
I was shouting at the top of my voice, "I'm 
from the country," and every eye was riv- 
eted on me. When I looked about I was 
surprised to see how unheeding they were. 



A soul's love letter 45 

How could they be so indifferent? I was 
very glad when the torture of that first 
dinner was over and Emma and I were 
sitting in our room again, looking at each 
other. She didn't awe me so much now, 
for she was countrified too, and most of 
the other girls, I observed, were town cut. 
I was both glad and sorry that they had 
put me in with country Emma. 

It was not long before things began to 
grow familiar, and I saw that a dignified 
professor might be made of very common 
mud, tempted in all points like myself, and 
not without blame. 

One day a girl I had much admired said, 
"I did not think I should like you that first 
day, but I do." When I asked her reason 
for doubt, she replied, " Why, I took you 
for one of those aristocrats.'' 

It was compensation to find 

''They's just as skart of me 
As I was skart of them." 

School days passed quickly, and all too 
soon I was to go back home again. Many, 
even most of the girls, were to return and 
attend until they graduated. How I wanted 



46 A soul's love letter 

to stay! In Dr. Raymond's science classes 
I had caught glimpses into the vastness of 
even the material universe, and I wanted 
to go on. I knew how dull and tame the 
farm would seem; but I must obey and go 
back where Nature had, eighteen years be- 
fore, called me forth into objective mani- 
festation. No books, no congenial compan- 
ions, no railroad within nine miles, nothing 
but disorganized household drudgery. Talk 
about Siberia! I do not think all country 
homes are as cheerless as was my own. 
Indeed, I have seen comfort and happiness 
in snow-bound lands. It was not the iso- 
lation from civilization centers, and hard 
work, that made the place so desolate. It 
was the lack of love and sympathy that 
chilled me. I wanted just the least frater- 
nal demonstration with words of sympathy 
and encouragement about the future — and 
they were denied me. 

But the time was near when I was to 
hear words of love spoken in my ear — 
hot, passionate words that burn, and blis- 
ter, and wither. 




"Hear our heavenly promise 
Through your mortal passion ! 
Love ye shall have from us 
In a pure relation." 

E were to have a railroad and 
great excitement prevailed. 
Hiram Brown first brought 
the news from Fieldsboro. 
Amos Whelpley and Frank 
Wilcox said they had several times noticed 
business-looking fellows riding about in liv- 
ery rigs, and finally it was a confirmed fa6t. 
Silas Slocum, who owned the most un- 
productive piece of terra firma about, said 
he had no doubt now regarding the future 
prosperity of the village. Eph Gillett de- 
clared he was "goin' to hold on" to his farm 
a little longer, as he expe6ted next they 
would discover oil or coal in some of the 
rocky hills. My father had little to say, but 
looked the significant look he always wore 
when things were coming his way. 

One winter evening, late, a tall gentleman 
muffled in a fur coat, called at the door. 
Could he and a friend have lodging for a 
day or two ? They were the contractors, put- 
ting through the new railroad. They would 



48 A soul's love letter 

pay well, and so they were accommodated. 

We spread before them plenty of whole- 
some farmer fare, melted the frost from the 
windows in the front room by a crackling 
wood fire and gave them a small bed-room 
adjoining, with the great soft bed of geese 
feathers and mother's *4og cabin" quilt on it. 

The whole household was awed by the 
presence of these men of the world. The 
boys carefully groomed the tired horses and 
even father grew loquacious over the ten- 
dollars handed him the morning after their 
arrival. The gold on the front room table 
guarded by two revolvers, added gravity to 
the situation. It was to pay the wages of 
the men who were constru6ling the road. 

Mother was fully up to the occasion, keep- 
ing her ear "cocked for coons,'' as Uncle 
Eb says. I assisted in cooking and waited 
on the table. I remember I blushed when 
I saw the eyes of the Colonel looking at 
me admiringly. They were amused by my 
diffidence, and I arose to the dignity of my 
position. They tried to open conversation: 

"Who reads Shakespeare here. Miss Ma- 
bel, not a little minx like you ?" 

Before I could answer mother responded: 



A soul's love letter 49 

"Yes, she does, she's always been crazy 
to read and go away to school. She's smart 
enough if I do say it, but her father thinks 
girls don't need much book learning.'' 

Mother's intended compliment embar- 
assed me greatly. I was afraid to talk with 
these men, but I thought somehow I could 
at least appear well if she would only hold 
her tongue. I was not quite sure what their 
attitude really was; I knew they must see 
that I was green, but I would not be foolish. 

The Colonel came to my side, his man- 
ner and tone that which a man uses toward 
a woman when he first becomes interested 
in her. 

"Miss Mabel, my friend here, Mr. Ross, 
is a young fellow fresh from college, and 
we have greatly enjoyed looking over the 
marked passages in your Shakespeare. We 
return tonight. Will you give us the pleas- 
ure of your company to sing and talk and 
get better acquainted?" 

I felt as if every drop of blood was suf- 
fusing my face and neck, as he spoke, but 
I answered carelessly, "Thank you, I shall 
be pleased." 

Do you suppose the woman ever lived 



50 A soul's love letter 

who could not tell exa6lly how I felt when 
mother and I were alone that afternoon, in 
busy preparation for the evening? We are 
all made of about the same mud, poke and 
puggle it as we will. Mother was in her 
element, baking, brewing and talking excit- 
edly. I ventured to suggest that she give 
people a chance to form their own opinions. 
If her daughter was so very smart, they 
would probably find it out. 

"Well," she said, "Pa and I have spent 
almost a hundred dollars on you, with two 
terms of music lessons and going away to 
Fieldsboro, to say nothing of the boys, and 
I ain't going to have them think we can't 
read Shakespeare as well as they can." 

I saw there was no use, and the old iron 
tea-kettle cover gave forth a shrill metallic 
warning when she swung it into place. 

The best polka dot linen did service that 
evening, and the table fairly groaned with 
good things. The Colonel asked to have 
the 'honor of eating with the waitress, so I 
was seated by his side at the table. All the 
delicate courtesy and attention a polished 
conventional man can give to an admired 
woman was bestowed upon my humble self. 



A soul's love letter 51 

I was both gratified and embarassed. When 
supper was nearly over mother appeared up- 
on the scene, bearing a mammoth mince pie 
and saying in her blandest tone: 

"I don't s'pose it's style to have pie for 
supper, but I want you to eat this to sam- 
ple my new batch of mince meat." 

Father never let pie go begging, and our 
guests both signified their willingness to test 
the quality of the mince meat, so mother 
subsided with satisfaction for the time. 

We soon adjourned to the front room. 
I was asked to sing some old ballads and 
complied, choosing "Annie Laurie" and 
" Sweet Afton." There was a sweet, nat- 
ural pathos to my voice that appeared to 
please them greatly. They called for "Bon- 
nie Doon" and "Auld Lang Sine," the Col- 
onel enthusiastically joining in turns and 
snatches. The evening passed pleasantly. 

Our guests prepared to leave us the fol- 
lowing morning, with many expressions of 
gratitude and saying we should surely see 
them again. 



*'It seems as if heaven had sent its insane angels 
into our world, as to an asylum, and here they will 
break out into their native music, and utter, at inter- 
vals, the words they have heard in Heaven. Then the 
mad fit returns and they mope and wallow like dogs." 




ARLYLE calls man a strad- 
dling biped without feathers. 
The two that had created 
such commotion among us 
had gone, but we talked of 
them often, telling over every little detail 
of those two days' association. The boys 
spoke of the livery horses, in jockey par- 
lance, as being "high-steppers" and "up on 
the bit." Father said it was worth all they 
paid to clean up the rig, robes and all, after 
such hard driving, adding, " I wouldn't want 
them to drive a horse of mine. That off 
horse is knee-sprung already, and the nigh 
one wont be sound long." 

Mother did not attempt to shine in the 
horse talk, but she dug up the Shakespear- 
ean hatchet from time to time, telling how 
she gave them to understand they were 
dealing with no low white trash, when they 
slept in her real geese-feather bed, and ate 
on her best polka-dot linen. 



53 

Two weeks passed before Colonel Fuller 
returned, bringing with him Mr. Griswold, 
the civil engineer. 

"This is the little girl I have been tel- 
ling you about," said the Colonel, greeting 
me cordially and leading me to his friend. 

"So, Miss Mabel, I am told you are a 
student of the great dramatist, and a singer 
of Scotch ballads. You aren't a hypnotist 
also are you ? Friend Fuller seems to have 
bats lately, and his mind runs along the line 
of Scotch ballads and poetical quotations." 

Their deportment was so easy and gra- 
cious that I began to feel less uncomfort- 
able than formerly, though I colored deeply 
when the conversation took a personal turn. 

Supper time gave mother the opportunity 
of working off much superfluous energy. 
I felt safe when I saw her attention focussed 
on blackberry pickles, head cheese, and fried 
cakes over against family pedigree, poetry 
and philosophy. The evening was spent in 
general conversation. I produced my auto- 
graph album, which was a great fad at that 
time among young people. It contained 
many typical album verses like: 

''If you love me as I love you, 
No knife can cut our love in two." 



54 A soul's love letter 

Both gentlemen wrote, at my request, the 

Colonel these words: 

''Blessed are the pure in heart." 

And his companion: 

"Dear Mabel : the world has nothing brighter 
or dearer to give than home, sweet home, the one 
you have." 

Arthur, are we not all Dr. Jekyls and 
Mr. Hydes in some degree ? What rational 
being dare have other feeling for poor de- 
luded humans, like himself, than compas- 
sion? Who are we who judge? ^Twas 
one wise who said, "There is One good, 
and that is God;" "Neither do I condemn 
thee; go and sin no more." Go do up the 
good and evil of the world into parcels and 
label them carefully, and I will speak flip- 
pantly of what you handle. But you have 
told me that sin rested in the motive. I'll 
grow modest. I am finite and only Infini- 
tude has insight to grasp the secret springs 
of motive. Deeper still lies the mystic 
mazes of heredity and environment. If so- 
called ruin had come to me that night and 
I had suffered even more through all the 
heavy years, whom should I blame ? "Leave 



A soul's love letter 55 

judgment to Him who alone knows the law.'' 

The family were preparing for the night 
when Colonel Fuller said to me, "Mabel, 
will you sit with me a moment ? I have 
brought a little book for you and we can 
look it over better together with no one 
to disturb us." 

"A book for me ?" I was so anxious to 
see it, and how kind he was. When we 
were alone he produced a beautiful copy 
of Mrs. Browning's poems. I sparkled 
with animation a moment, and then he had 
caught me in his arms with the whisper: 

"Mabel, I love you ! I love you. Give 
yourself to me this night. Here, now, un- 
reservedly, yield yourself. You are not 
afraid of me. You must, you shall! I love 
you so tenderly. I have money. You shall 
go to school — to Europe, where you will. 
Only be mine ! mine ! " 

His hot breath was upon me; — and this 
was love — at last. 

Was this the thing I had wanted ? I was 
dazed a moment, — then shame came, and I 
fled from the man wildly. What a fool I 
had been to think he really cared for me! 
Doubtless they had been laughing at me 



56 A soul's love letter 

all the time. Oh horrible thought! I knew 
it must be so, and I cried for relief. My 
mother's blood boiled within me. They 
should not speak to me again, I thought. 
That was pride. 'Twould ruin my life, said 
fear. Then something said, "What does it 
all amount to, anyway?" If I could only 
go to school. 

My dear Arthur, the world wou.d want 
me to talk here of maidenly purity and 
goody-goodness. But I must be truthful 
to you. It was later that I analyzed deep 
enough to recognize the real spiritual qual- 
ity in a6ts — when I did what I thought was 
right for right's sake; but I claim now it 
was fear and pride that held me within 
convention's borders that night. 

A man is on his way to the gallows. The 
rabble are curious. Boys are shouting and 
deriding. So did the mob nineteen hun- 
dred years ago. Men like John Bunyan 
stand afar off and say in reverent tones: 
"Except for the grace of God there goes 
John Bunyan." 




"Unless you can think when the song is done, 

No other is soft in the rhythm, 

Unless you can fear when left by one 

That all else may go with him ; 

Unless you can know when unpraised by his breath 

That your beauty itself wants proving. 

Unless you can swear 'For life — for death !' 

Oh, fear to call it loving." 

FELT strangely embarassed 
when I met the Colonel next 
morning. He was ill at ease 
as well as myself, when he 
greeted me. His manner was 
no longer genial, but business-like and se- 
rious. I was glad when mother kept me 
busy assisting with work in the pantry; for 
the day was cold and stormy and no one 
would venture forth. 

I was peeling apples for mother's pies 
when, taking advantage of her absence, 
Colonel Fuller appeared in the doorway. 
"Mabel, I am afraid to approach you af- 
ter last night's scene, but I can't wait 
longer to ask your forgiveness. Give me 
another trial, and I will never abuse your 
confidence again." Mother appeared before 
I could answer. 



58 A soul's love letter 

"My good woman," he said, laying his 
hand upon mother's arm, "will you trust 
me with your daughter? I esteem her 
most highly, and may all the fiends of 
Hades combine against me if I bring her 
to harm." 

Tears sprang to his eyes. We both knew 
the man's better nature spoke truthfully. 
Mother herself was quite subdued. 

"I have always taught my children to do 
right, and I ain't afraid to trust either one 
of you," she said. 

Colonel Fuller was a changed man from 
the moment. I talked with him. I read 
and sang with him. I rode out alone with 
him. I believed, as he declared, that a 
higher and better love had taken the place 
of the passionate infatuation, that some- 
times causes so much trouble. 

True love, like the charity of St. Paul, 
seeketh not its own, vaunteth not itself, 
doth not behave itself unseemly. The spuri- 
ous article often resembles the genuine so 
closely that it takes a connoisseur to dis- 
cern the difference. It has been said "Love 
and lie; your love is curable.'' I will add, 
love and seek your own gratification at 



A SOUL S LOVE LETTER 59 

the expense of the object loved; — your 
love is very curable. 

Colonel Fuller gave me many moments 
of pleasure that winter, and it was with 
sincere regret that we finally parted at the 
completion of the railroad. It was his wish 
that I give up school, and give myself into 
his keeping for life, but I could not bring 
myself to love the man better than my 
great hope, and so we parted. 

'* Ships that pass in the night and speak 

Each other in passing, 
Only a signal shown, a distant voice in 
the darkness." 




''Nothing's small — no lily-mufBed hum of summer bee 
But finds some coupling with the shining stars." 

N OTHER term of school 
teaching and another term at 
Fieldsboro, brought me home 
again for the winter. Books 
were growing to be more a 
feature in the, home life, — Father, still dis- 
trustful of "made up stuff/' but offering 
no serious objection. 

Our school had now grov/n to some pro- 
portions. A new school building had been 
erected, and three teachers were employed 
instead of one. The principal, as he was 
called, was quite a personage among the peo- 
ple, especially the girl element. We were to 
have a new principal and the gossips were 
busy hashing and re-hashing. There was 
talk of prodigality, and an unfinished college 
course; but the world rolled on, making his- 
tory, — big events, — little events,' — all his- 
tory. So the man came, and so I met him. 
Some one asks if the dog had barked that 
Elizabeth Barrett carried in her arms the 
day when she eloped with her soul's mate, 
what would have been the effect upon Eng- 
lish literature. I hold in my hand a gladiola 



6i 



bulb, a rough, unsightly thing, yet all the 
potentialities of the marvellous future crea- 
tion are here, — roots, stems, leaves tiowers. 

I think a thought, and the sensitive blood 
is telltale in my suffused or pallid face. 
Scientists tell of a man killed so; and yet 
a million thoughts do not crowd the area 
of a needle's point. 

When I called for the mail that day, I 
found Emma Stone an old school mate, 
spending a week at home. 

"We ought to visit the school, and meet 
the new teacher," she said, as I was leav- 
ing; and so arrangements were made. 

There were three of us with Effie Chan- 
dler, gathered in the school house entry. 
Confident Emma Stone raps, and when the 
principal responds she asks for Lizzie Davis, 
one of the largest girls. Lizzie comes out 
to us, we whisper and simper a moment, 
as girls do sometimes, and then march in 
proudly with very self-conscious decorum. 

The teacher goes on through the dull rou- 
tine of teaching the young idea how to 
shoot, which at that time, meant stuffing 
all you could into the mind without an at- 
tempt to draw anything out. 



62 A soul's love letter 

Froebel, grand old man! What a race 
benefadlor! And still we give to such a 
dinner of husks and a bed of straw, so busy 
are we feeding and sleeping a few hundred 
epicures. 

"Desks in order," says the tired teacher. 
Then ensues a rattle and scramble to bring 
order out of chaos. 

"Arms folded" — a death-like hush falls 
over the room, only broken by a "hem!" 
or "haw!" of some pert pupil. 

"School stand, — excused." And out tile 
two score or more of America's future 
fathers, mothers, lawyers do6fors, farmers, 
teachers, robbers, preachers, artists, build- 
ers, workers, men, women. 

School over, we are duly introduced to 
the principal. We talk of schools in gen- 
eral and this one in particular. When part- 
ing time comes, we find refuge in perfunc- 
tory remarks: 

"I have enjoyed my call very much." 

"Thank you, I shall be pleased to see 
you again." 

"My brother is home now, and we shall 
be glad to have you call." 



A soul's love letter 67, 

"Thank you, I shall do so with pleasure." 

"Good afternoon." 

"Good afternoon." 

How indifferently I walked home that 
night 'cross lots in the snow path of my 
junior brother who attended the school. 
How could I know there were years of 
association before me with this quiet man 
of the school room — years when I helped 
him with a strength no other could give, 
then years of my own weakness, when he 
stood by my side and repaid it. Years 
when both body and soul were struggling 
for poise in existence. 



"No, by Allah! she believed in me when none 
else would believe." 




HE principal called within a 
week, — called frequently. 
Two months passed so, and 
then he told me the old, old 
stor}^ that Drummond says 
began with the affinity of two differing cells. 

We had been reading "The Dream of the 
Hunter," when he took my hand, saying 
seriously: "Why did I not meet you be- 
fore? Mabel, I love you." 

Then followed confessions, even as Angel 
Claire confessed to Tess, of what had been 
but should not be again. It is the impulse 
every honest man feels, coming before the 
woman he loves, knowing her purity, and 
regretting a past that makes him not quite 
her equal. "But little sister," he continued, 
"I can amend and achieve, since I have 
this great love to help me." 

I answered quickly, "I took you for my 
brother from the first. I trust you. Just 
bring me results, while I work out my own." 

I resumed my studies at once, and he left 
for a western city. My parting word was: 

"All things come to those who wait." 

"And work," he added, smiling. 




''Our spirits have climbed high 
By the reason of the passion of our grief, 
And from the top of sense looked over sense, 
To the significance and heart of things, 
Rather than things themselves." 

HAD met a widow, a liter- 
ary character of Fieldsboro, 
who, needing companionship, 
had made me the gracious 
offer of rooming in her home 
without charge. Nine terms were required 
for graduation. I had attended two. I in- 
terested father in the situation. The small 
expense necessary recommended itself to his 
practical mind, and with a little opposition, 
I won my case. 

To be sure, girls didn't need much edu- 
cation, but if I could make it inexpensive 
'twas at least no harm. 

"Well, go ahead," he said. "I suppose 
you'll never be contented till you reach the 
end of the rope. " 

To do my father justice I must say that 
he greatly rejoiced in each and every one 
one of my successes. But they were being 
purchased at the price of blood, though no 
one knew it but myself. Foolish girl ! I 
had dreamed of standing some day on the 



66 

very topmost round of the ladder of knowl- 
edge, and here was Commencement Day, 
at the Seminary, finding me dizzy on the 
first round. 

It was a pale, tired girl who walked to 
the footlights that night, to read her grad- 
uating essay, entitled "The Glamour of Fic- 
tion." Even yet I recall the closing words: 

"The world will be cold indeed if it does 
not reckon among its great ones such mar- 
tyrs as missed the palm but not the pains 
of martyrdom. Heroes without laurels, and 
victors without the jubilation of triumph." 

I remember, too, how the white ribbon 
that decorated my soft mull dress trembled 
with each heart-throb, as if it also had felt 
the strain, and was asking for rest. 

It was the June time and Cousin Carrie 
had come again to spend vacation among 
the country friends. I saw her fine, classic 
face smiling in that strange throng, but tears 
were sparkling in her eyes. She among all 
before me, knew my thought that day. No 
word had passed between us, but her nature 
was intuitive, and she remembered my words. 
The struggle, the cost — she felt it all. 

There was something akin to sorrow with 
me that day, — 



A soul's love letter 67 

"A something too vague, could I name it, for others 
to know." 

Deep-sounding thought currents were 
surging through the brain substance of one 
"sweet girl graduate" as she quietly sat there 
so worn at twenty, overlooking the crowded 
chapel. An ex-Governor, with other digni- 
taries, was seated on the platform; but they 
all seemed pygmies: — Men, great men, 
schools, cities, nations, the earth itself only 
God's footstool. I could easily toss it into 
space. I — a little girl — had thought to gain 
knowledge in some of the schools men had 
reared on this little ball, one-f orth land and 
three- fourths water. I gathered up my 
books and flowers and went forward to 
receive congratulations among the rest; but 
I felt, Arthur, like Lyndall did and as all 
must feel sometime, 'I didn't want schools, 
nor men, nor the things men work for, I 
just wanted something great and good and 
pure to lift me to itself. 




great marts. 



*' Learn to win a lady's faith 
Nobly, as the thing is high, 
Bravely, as for life or death 
With a loyal gravity. 

"Lead her from the festive boards, 
Point her to the starry skies ; 
Guard her by your truthful words, 
Pure from courtship flatteries." 

Y father, quite as ignorant as 
myself, expe6ted great things 
of me now, and I must go 
out and contend — offer my 
mental wares in the world's 
I must squeeze my drop of 
juice from the World Orange. Out there 
a million hands were squeezing frantically— 
a million mouths were sucking eagerly. 

Arthur, can you understand how I changed 
from girl to woman during those two years, 
learning what competition — unequal compe- 
tition means? These human animals were 
not satisfied when immediate appetites were 
satiated; but surfeiting and drunken with 
earth's choicest elixirs, I could see them 
push back even baby mouths that pressed 
rich Nature to get their share of sap. 

My friend had entered upon the study of 
medicine poor, and away in that distant city 



A soul's love letter 69 

I learned to realize more and more the struo:- 
gle he was making. Handclasps by letter and 
encouraging words passed between us often. 

Only once I felt through stress and strain 
a brave soul was halting: '^ Mabel, you are 
the only one who can help me," he wrote, 
"but I must not be selhsh. My most blessed 
thought is that if I fail I leave you free 
and pure as when I found you." 

It was an April day when he came back, 
handing me the parchment that meant so 
little and yet so much to him. 

"It is yours, Mabel," he said, "I never 
could have gone through without friends or 
wealth had it not been for you." 

When we were alone he spoke reveren- 
tially of victories quite as important to my 
mind as taking the highest honors in his 
class: "I have done what I could to amend 
and achieve," he said. "I am more than 
repaid, little sister, even should I miss the 
crowning joy." 

A week we wandered about the old fa- 
miliar haunts of the farm, often lingering 
in a sunny, quiet corner with a book, and 
lived again among old friends. Too soon 
he said to me with his simple, earnest way: 



70 A soul's love letter 

"Little comrade, I must leave you soon. 
Do we not need each other?" 

A moment I waited before I ventured : 

"You always understand. Yes, I think 
we need each other." 

A long time we sat there on the old rock 
in the orchard, where I had played "come 
visiting" with the children when a little girl. 

We were subdued in our happiness. We 
made our little plans, talking with the beauty 
of perfe6l frankness, of that home to be, of 
the need of economy, and of other and 
more sacred themes. 

"Oh, Mabel, God's universe must be 
o-ood. This love teaches me so much." 

Words were not necessary longer. Each 
felt the other understood. The hour was 
full of prayer. It was quite dark when he 
broke the silence: 

"Could a man ever descend again after 
an hour like this? I see it all." 



"'First God's love. 
And next,' he smiled, 'the love of wedded souls.' 




N June the man of God said 
the conventional words over 
us, and we launched our ship 
on the matrimonial sea. We 
were to locate in a country 
town of Pennsylvania with ten dollars in 
pocket, a horse and carriage, eight or ten 
medical books, some simple do(?tor's appa- 
ratus and $1000 college debts — the biggest 
thing we carried. 

We found three rooms with an old couple 
on Main street and hung up a modest sign. 
One room must be given up for the office 
and the other large room did service as 
kitchen, dining room and parlor. Callers, 
not patients, came early, as they always do 
in country places. Sumptuous young women 
and besilked, befrizzled and bonneted mat- 
ronly dames. They were curious, I suppose, 
to see the new doctor and his wife. I grew 
to know just what way the chat would run 
and had my answers all ready. 

'^How do you like our little village?" 
" Does your husband get much to do, yet ?" 
"Oh yes, there's sights of sickness in town." 



72 A SOULS LOVE LETTER 

"They say Dr. Johnson is busy night and 
day." 

"What church do you attend? Oh, not 
a member? We should be pleased to have 
you make your church home with us." And 
they mentioned one of the hundred and fifty 
odd Christian se6ls, as the case might be. 

I was usually glad when the ordeal was 
over, for it was all very trying to my natu- 
ral spontaneity. 

How well I remember the first real pro- 
fessional call! It came in the night — a 
messenger in haste said breathlessly: 

"This the dodor? Come to Mr. Brayton's 
opposite the Presbyterian church, quick !" 

In the excitement that followed I dropped 
my husband's watch from the vest I was 
holding ready, and broke the crystal. He 
finally got off. If you think I rested those 
two hours of his absence, Arthur, you have 
never been the wife of a young physician 
and helped him attend his first case. 

Selfish, wicked girl! My first question 
on his return was not as to the welfare of 
the poor patient, but "Do you think they 
liked you?" 

This brought a smile. "Well, I really 



A SOUI/S LOVE LETTER 73 

cannot say, dear, but the poor man is bet- 
ter,'' he answered cheerfully. 

I cannot leave this part of my story with- 
out mention of dear old Aunt Sarah Silver- 
ing. She had married a prosperous widower, 
with four children, whom she mothered and 
sent out of the home nest before her own 
little Sadie came. Aunt Sarah was. a new 
edition of Samantha Allen, only more so. 
When her husband lost his property by sign- 
ing with the boys, and became an invalid 
on her hands, she bought a pony and phaeton 
and scoured the country up and down selling 
bosom-boards to maintain the family. 

Dear old heart! I can see her now, as 
she came puffing up the back lane that hot 
summer afternoon to call upon the new doc- 
tor and his wife. She wore her usual af- 
ternoon white apron and carried, beside her 
two hundred pounds avoirdupois, in one 
hand an elderberry pie, and in the other a 
mammoth sun umbrella. I was sitting on 
the front porch when she turned in at the 
gate, perspiration standing in drops on her 
smiling old face. Her first words made me 
feel at home: 

"I'm Aunt Sarah Silvering. I baked pies 



74 

this morning and thought mebbe you'd like 
to try one. Well, how d'ye do anyway?" 
she said, taking the seat I offered as I thank- 
ingly received the juicy dyspetic-producer. 

^'Bless me, but it's hot. Guess I hain't 
cooled off yet from baking,'' she panted. 

I brought forth a huge ^'Jap" fan, vviiich 
she waved vigorously while she continued: 

"Does things seem to be home-like to ye, 
yet? When I married Pap we went to Glen- 
ville to live. I thought I never'd get used 
to folks and things there, but I did, and 
it'll be just the same with you." 

I told her I found the place very pleasant. 

"Well," said Aunt Sarah, "There's two 
women I always pity, — its the doctor's wife 
and the minister's wife. But don't ye ever 
get discouraged. The doctors here are get- 
tin' old and we need some new one. Mr. 
Brayton's folks liked your man splendid." 

I said calmly I was very glad to hear it, 
but my heart was bounding for joy. 

"Ye'll hear lots of things to hurt ye, so 
I'm goin' to tell ye about our son Jim. He 
owns one of the biggest houses in Jones- 
boro now, and has all he can do, but he 
had up-hill work starting. One day I was 



A SOU]/S LOVE LETTER 75 

goin' over in the 'bus to see 'em, soon af- 
ter they'd settled. I heard two women 
talkin' 'bout someone who was sick. One 
said, ^ Well, he'll die sure now, for they've 
got that green do6tor Jim Silvering. Why 
he don't amount to a hill of beans. Sam 
used to know his father when Jim was a 
boy and they lived down on the plank road.'" 

We both laughed pleasantly, and after 
visiting a few moments longer Aunt Sarah 
said she must be going back or Pap would 
miss her. 

^' We've got a garden full of stuff. Come 
and see us. Bring a basket and get any- 
thing you want," she said as she joggled 
down the back lane. 

An hour later, when the do(?l:or came in 
from the drug store, I burst out joyfully : 
"Oh, Aunt Sarah Silvering has been here. 
She said they did like you up at Mr. 
Brayton's. After we pay all the debts we'll 
buy a place of our own, and have a gar- 
den and flowers and everything nice, won't 
we dear?" 




^'Lo, these are parts of His ways — but how little 
a portion is heard of Him, but the thunder of His 
power who can understand?" 

HERE were five churches in 
this little village and Church- 
ianity was rampant. There 
were splits and cliques galore 
each jealous and trying to 
outdo all the others. Every desirable new- 
comer was pounced upon as soon as dis- 
covered by these church vandals. Young 
and ignorant, I was early seized upon as 
new plunder. I sang, read, wrote, trained 
children for entertainments, worked for 
the heathen, ate church oyster stews, was 
feasted and fasted. They seemed to regard 
me as public property and I tried to fill 
the bill. Nevertheless, we were very happy. 
The economy I was obliged to practice 
grew interesting. 'Twas like a game, see- 
ing how far a dollar would go and trying 
to create something out ol nothing. Inger- 
soll said nothing made pretty poor material 
out of which to constru6t a universe. How 
do we know ? Things do not always appear 
on the surface. Perhaps the enthusiasm I 
realized over my tasteful little dishes made 



77 

from next to nothing was the very God- 
feeling itself, that finds satisfadlion and 
reward in ever working for betterment, 
bringing order out of chaos and harmony 
out of discord. 

We were in a beautiful country. The 
river-like creek spread its lazy length along 
the valley, where fertile farms lay with up- 
turned faces waiting to be kissed into full- 
ness by the sun and the rain. 

There were rolling hills farther back, and 
quiet wooded drives — so welcome in the 
heated days of summer. How we did en- 
joy those rides together! for we would take 
so much of our inheritance out of the stren- 
uous about us, and often stole away on 
business or otherwise, leaving only a note 
on the office door. 

Later I recall most interesting rides in 
the night time, when I chose to ride and 
hold horse rather than wait alone and lis- 
ten for burglars. 

One of these rides, I distin6tly remember, 
came late in the evening after a heavy rain. 
There was that delicious odor and coolness 
over everything, that comes after a feverish 
summer day has been bathed and rested 



78 

and refreshed by a thorough thunder storm. 
The home of the patient, Mr. Allen, was 
a distance of nearly four miles. Half the 
way lay through beautiful open woods. The 
moonlight was resting soft and shadowy on 
every obje6t, glinting and sparkling from the 
little pools of water that stood in the road. 
Infinitude was with us that night. We 
left off dusting the "flaunty carpets of the 
world" and spoke to each other as two 
souls may, riding away in the moonlight 
and shadows and silence. 

''This world's no blot for us nor blank ; it means 
intensely, and it means good." 

"My God, my God, let me for once look on thee 
As though naught else existed, — we alone!" 



'Men and women, Gods in embryo.' 




Y neighbors grew interesting 
to me as I became better 
acquainted. Each had his or 
her own peculiar individual- 
ity and setting. The old cou- 
ple, from whom we rented our simple quar- 
ters, were exceedingly kind and considerate. 
I soon learned that everybody in the town, 
after they reached middle life, was known as 
"Aunt" or '^Uncle" So-and-so. Aunt Esther 
and Uncle Henry were true penny-pinching 
Yankees. They had retired from their large 
farm to this village home, where they raised 
their own vegetables and kept chickens. 

Aunt Esther was decidedly the head of 
the household, and though Uncle Henry put 
in a counter claim at odd times and places, 
he was quickly squelched by his partner of 
fifty-five years. 

Uncle Henry had not retained the full 
vigorous play of faculties as had Aunt Es- 
ther, but had relapsed into that semi-boyish- 
ness sometimes seen in aged men. He doted 
much upon a harmless affiliation with the 
opposite sex, or "females," as he was pleased 
to call them. 



8o A soul's love letter 

We were scarcely settled in our rooms 
before the dear old man took it upon him- 
self to entertain the new do6tor and wife. 
Especially he sought to look after the needs 
of the young "female" wife. Aunt Esther 
seemed to think the young people would pre- 
fer looking after themselves. Uncle Henry 
would hardly drop his tall spare form into 
the chair I offered when Aunt Esther, com- 
ing from the garden, would call out sharply: 

"Henr}', I want some wood split." 

Uncle Henry would quit smoothing his 
Puritanical locks and hobble out, saying: 

"Mother, there's heaps of wood split, — I 
want to talk to the doctor's wife a minute." 

Aunt Esther would have no mercy, but 
under her breath would say, "You old goose, 
she don't want to hear your clack! Talk to 
me if you've got to talk." 

Occasionally Aunt Esther would don her 
best black merino dress, black fringe shawl 
and poke bonnet for a day or two of outing 
at the farm among old neighbors. When she 
was fairly out of sight. Uncle Henry would 
breathe a sigh of relief, and commence high 
carnival, visiting among the people and en- 
joying himself generally until her return. 



A soul's love letter 8 1 

Upon a certain evening of Aunt Esther's 
absence, he called to me anxiously as I 
was passing the kitchen door: 

"Beats Sam Hill what's become of that 
loaf of bread. I had it sure this noon. 
Mother keeps it in a jar under the shelf," 
he said as I entered the kitchen and insti- 
tuted a diligent search for the lost loaf. 

The bread crock being empty, I lifted the 
cover from a neighboring crock, containing 
Aunt Esther's soft soap, and saw the tip 
of the "staff of life" heaving above the 
contents. It was a sorry looking loaf that 
I produced for Uncle Henry's repast. 

"Yer wouldn't know it from a side of 
sole leather," he said, ruefully; but I men- 
ded the matter by taking him to my own 
table. 

"Don't tell mother a tarnal word about 
that bread," he artfully suggested. 

When many weeks had passed and I 
knew distance made Uncle Henry safe, I 
told Aunt Esther about the bread disaster. 

"The old fool!'' was all she said. 



"Let one more attest 
I have lived, seen God's hand through a hfetime 
And all was for the best." 




HEN autumn came we took 
more commodious quarters. 
A new experience was be- 
fore us, and we spoke to each 
other, even as John Halifax 
did to Phineas, witli blissful awe. 

A little sail was coming out of the Un- 
known to voyage with us in the present 
Known. 'Tis said of one, "the mother rap- 
ture slew her." Such happy ending I was 
denied. My strength was passing — a day 
of reckoning was at hand, for overdrawn 
checks on vitality. The crisis came, and I 
lay me down prostrate and broken. Days, 
weeks, I hovered, a second time at the dim 
border; then with gentlest nursing and ten- 
derest care they brought me back to life, 
but not to health. Slowly the fa6t dawned 
that I was doomed to invalidism for many 
years, perhaps for life. How bitter grew 
the days! How unjust it all seemed! So 
young, so happy we had been; I could 
not understand. I will endure all pain^ 
poverty or disappointment, I cried, only this 



A soul's love letter 83 

one great bliss I can't surrender. Does God 

make mother-love to mock it? There is no 

God! The universe is indeed a charnel 

house where fiends hold revel, I felt. 

I was not the first child to rebel against 

the discipline of the higher grade. 

"Oh God, thou needest to be sureher God 
To bear with us than ever to have made us." 

Arthur, I had never been called stupid 
in the seminary days, but I took long to 
learn my lesson in the higher school. The 
light commenced to break first when I went 
out to succor others, forgetful of my own 
heart-wounds. Even a feeble hand could 
carry a cup of cold water and touch gently. 

Burdened and distressed, disappointed and 
childless, even so much as this can be hidden 
away in the grateful smile of those you re- 
lieve. Strange mission of pain ! In the pres- 
ence of others' sorrow our own woes reach 
their minimum. What else is it but this that 
makes us linger enrapped before the great 
pictures of Christ agonizing in the garden, 
or on the cross? 

What is it but this that shall revolutionize 
society and at last make all men brothers ? 

Blessedness, — happiness, came once more. 




"Put roses in their hair, put precious stones on 
their breasts, see that they be arrayed in purple and 
scarlet, with other delights ; that they also learn to 
read the gilded heraldry of the sky, and upon earth 
be taught — not only the labor, but the loveliness," 

WAS going back to visit and 
rest at the old farm home. 
Three years had passed since 
I had rode away that spring 
morning. Varied thoughts 
and emotions came to me as I drew near 
the old associations. Over the railroad bed, 
where I was riding, I had ridden with Col- 
onel Fuller, when the road was in process 
of construction, seven years before. 

Places and farms I had known looked at 
me familiarly, like old friends. My sister 
met me at the station and a mile drive 
brought us to the little huddle of houses, 
anciently known as "The Berg." It seemed 
the fixed chara6lers I saw sitting on the steps 
of the grocery and just beyond at the post- 
office must have remained faithful at their 
posts during my three years' absence. 

Hiram Brown, the tall gaunt man-gossip 
of the place, was whittling what appeared 
to be the same stick he held the day I left. 
And there were Amos Whelpley and Frank 



A soul's love letter 85 



Wilcox, sitting on their old perches — talk- 
ing cracker-barrel politics and philosophy. 
Passing the old blacksmith shop I caught 
a glimpse of the ruddy face of Pat Murphy, 
illuminated by the forge fire, and saw his 
biawny arm in uprolled sleeve, ringing anvil 
music, the hot iron responding in its torture 
by giving out brilliant spark-showers. As a 
child I had seen only the beautiful sparks, 
— the result. Now I saw these and more, 
— "the liery furnace" — heard the cry of an- 
guish under the hammer, — recognized the 
means to an end. 

A call at the postoffice for the mail, and 
then the old farm was before me asfain. 
The windows with their blue oilcloth shades 
and green blinds swung wide apart, seemed 
like great sphynx eyes looking out expres- 
sionless and solemn. 

Before we reached the horse-block, where 
the milk can stood a faithful sentinel, mother 
was out laughing and crying all in the same 
breath. "Oh dear, you've caught us, just 
before we got things into place," she said 
as we reached the front door of the great 
farm kitchen, where Susan Green of pyra- 
mid cake renown, stood red and perspiring 
over the old elevated oven stove. 



86 A soul's love letter 

"Things are a little upset," said Susan, 
"but what muss there is you see right in 
the middle of the floor — the corners are all 
clean and there's plenty to eat." 

In the big "spare room" another neigh- 
boring woman was hanging up the old fam- 
ily portraits, mottos and chromos, the usual 
wall decorations of the ordinar}/ farmhouse. 

It was characteristic of my mother to get 
out a full force, and clean house from cellar 
to garret whenever company was in pros- 
pect. She could not let me rest till I had 
taken a journey to the pantry. 

"There!" she said, "I am going to see if 
we can't get some color into your face." 

Pies, cakes and other good things loomed 
up on every side; but the milk rack, full 
of great pans of cream-covered milk, I re- 
marked looked most tempting. 

"Well, Susan," said my mother, "bring 
this child a bowl of bread and milk; she 
can sit down and start on that, while the 
ham and dandelion greens cook for dinner."' 

Susan soon appeared bearing a bowl filled 
with the richest cream. 

"Now that's what we call bread and milk," 
said mother with satisfaction, "No wonder 



A soul's love letter 87 

you look sick, I should die if I. had to live 
on milk and water and baker's stuff." 

To go over every nook and corner of the 
house and farm and hnd nothing changed, 
had a certain impressiveness. The wood 
sink, in the woodshed, where I had washed 
dishes, pots, pans, pails and cans, to my 
heart's content, looked at me fraternally. 

Farther on, in the corner, stood Ithe tool- 
box, with hoes hanging above, and axes and 
saws arranged in order on the wall close by. 

In the back yard grew clumps of bur- 
dock, horseradish and comfrey in their old 
haunts. 

The flower garden was always a source 
of delight and satisfaction. The beds were 
losing shape by negle6t, but the collection 
was a marvel in variety. Black-eyed Su- 
sans coquetted with Sweet Williams over 
the bleeding hearts that drooped sugges- 
tivel}^ between ! Polyanthus, petunias, batch- 
ellor's buttons and everlastings were there 
in glory and profusion. 

My mother seemed so well and happy I 
little thought when I left at the end of a 
two weeks' visit I should never see her 
about the old home again. 



88 A soul's love letter 

To me was not given the vision of the an- 
gel in Tolstoy's story, "What Men Live By.'' 

That same year mother came to my home 
in failing health. In the four months we had 
her with us, she grew patient and serene as 
I had never known her to be in the hurried 
workingdays. The something I had missed 
when a child, I found now in this quiet, 
resting mother. Just to hear her say, "My 
child," was peace and contentment. 

Poor tired fathers and mothers! Poor 
tired brothers and sisters! Poor tired hu- 
manity! How little we know of the dormant 
sweetness in every soul! The real essence 
of true culture was with my mother — even 
an artistic nature and a sympathetic heart. 
Better are these qualities than any conven- 
tional virtue or veneer. 

In the late Autumn the summons came 
for which she had long waited, and moth- 
er's working, care-distra6led days were over. 

Shall the world forever allow these life 
tragedies to be enacted and go on unheed- 
ing until the work of forming falls from out 
their hands ? Dark ages have their lessons. 
Oh People, build more wisely — watch the 
Master-builder! 




''But if a man walk in the night he stumbleth, 
because there is no light in him." 

OT long ago I listened to a 
sermon which pleased and 
helped me much. The min- 
ister, a hale, hearty man of 
years, had been retired. The 
things he said came forth with the genuine 
ring — simple, spontaneous. His text was: 

"The strength of the young men and maidens shall 
fail, but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew 
their strength ; they shall mount up with the wings 
of the eagle, they shall run and not be weary, they 
shall walk and not faint." 

When a child, his father had sent him — 
basket in hand — to the woods, nut-gather- 
ing. When the basket came back well filled 
the boy felt like Napoleon at Austerlitz; 
when it returned empty he felt like Napo- 
leon at Waterloo. His father's greeting was 
always the same — always gentle, be the 
basket full or empty. At this the boy mar- 
velled. Later he learned the do6fors had 
feared tuberculosis, and his father had sent 
him out on those New Hampshire mountain 
sides to bring back — health. The frail lad 
thought his father wanted him to bring back 



90 A soul's love letter 

hickory nuts. The tragedy of Hfe is its 
hickory-nut story. 

Arthur, how often have we talked these 
matters over heart to heart, even soul to 
soul. Sometimes we have been moved by 
the ludicrousness of it all, but the pathos 
touched us most. We thought we saw in 
manifestation three attributes of the entity 
we call God: Love, Wisdom, Power. Love, 
because we have in finite what the Over- 
soul has in infmite. A stream cannot rise 
hiofher than its source. Wisdom and Power 
were self-evident in order and operation. 
From the sacred love home, where we have 
found each for each in the heart of the other, 
we reach out fondly, compassionately, to a 
universe filled with our kindred. We have 
sworn to forgive as we would be forgiven — 
our own weakness has taught us so much* — 
and with labor and loyalty the days do grow 
most tuneful. Hov/ easily the wise power 
of Love can measure and settle our rela- 
tions! To me this Love blends all the 
various elements of father, mother, sister, 
brother, friend, lover. Love — listen, angels 
— "Truth's no cleaner thing than Love." 



"Oh, poet, oh, my love ! 

Since I was too ambitious in my deed, 

And thought to distance all men in success, 

Till God came on me, marked the place and said : 

'Ill-doer, henceforth keep within this line. 

Attempting less than others,' and I stand 

And work among Christ's little ones, content." 




HOSE were dark days fol- 
lowing my mother's death — 
dragging, dreary times. Dire 
thoughts chased through my 
brain — hollow, transient. If 
one could only sleep and never waken more 
with that returning conscious shudder. For 
the sake of those who loved me I waited 
on — feeble in body, heart sick and soul out 
of tune. I had missed my bearings, lost my 
way in the darkness, but out of agonizing 
shadows and Gethsemane valleys burst res- 
urre6lion morning with rolled back stone 
and Easter bloom. Only those lives need 
be barren who live for self. Words of love 
and looks of gratitude from sufferers are 
children that never break the hearts of 
those who brought them forth. When smiles 
sent daggers to my heart and happy faces 
mocked me with their joy, 'twas work and 
sacrifice that saved me whole. Take no 



92 A soul's love letter 

one's word — just do the thing that calls for 
these, then tell me if great Nature compen- 
sates. The old, the sick and forsaken were 
sought out. Classes were organized among 
the factory children, and life that had hung 
around my neck like a millstone, changed 
into a jewel bright when light shines on it. 

Many of these children I found quick to 
learn and almost all were eager and hungry 
for knowledge. 

I must tell you of little Bessie, a beau- 
tiful girl of ten years, who interested me 
from the first. She was one of those little 
unfortunates that Topsy said, "jest grew." 
The mother was living her secret life in a 
neighboring city. I took the child to train 
privately. Before the year came round 
again, she had made line progress. I think 
I have never enjoyed such pleasure in a 
token of remembrance as came from the 
little handkerchief Bessie brought me on 
the Christ birthday of that year. 

"Mamma cried when I sang for her," said 
the child. 

"What did you sing, little one?" I asked. 

"Oh, I sang 'Jewels' and 'Will there be 
Any Stars in My Crown.'" 



A soul's love letter 93 

''Tell 3'our mamma I wish to see her/' 
1 said. 

"I wanted mamma to come today, but 
she said you wouldn't want her," answered 
the innocent one. 

''Tell her I do want her, sweetheart," I 
said, guessing the probable reason of the 
woman's sensitiveness. 

The following afternoon a faded-looking 
woman rang the bell diffidently. 

"I am Bessie's mother," she said timidly. 

I took her hand and asked her in. It was 
a moment before she spoke; then she said 
with emotion, " I know what folks think of 
me, but I want to thank you.'' 

I could not speak. Something in the 
woman appealed to me. I felt somehow 
she had been more sinned against than 
sinning, and up against this thought stood 
another, best expressed in those lines from 
"Aurora Leigh," which you remember, Ar- 
thur, I quoted for you once before, when we 
sat watching the begrimed workers flock 
from the mills and facSfories toward their 
wretched homes in the slums: 

*'Poor, blind souls, that writhe toward heaven along 

the devil's trail ! 
Who knows, I thought, but He may stretch His 

hand, and pick them up. 



94 

'Tis written He hears young ravens when they cry, 

and yet they cry for carrion ! 
Oh my God, and we who make excuses for the rest, 

we do it in our measure," 

Why, this woman too, was a child of the 
King! Were we not sisters? When she 
left her cheeks were tear stained. I think 
my own eyes were not dr}^ 

Arthur, would anyone but you understand 
if I speak the truth and say I felt a spiritual 
uplift from conta6t with this woman of the 
street ? So art often moves me — great poems, 
great pi6fures. Sublime cathedrals, and Na- 
ture, too, so affe6f me, when alone I let them 
speak to me. 

And here was this sister whom people 
called an outcast, striking the same chord — 
producing the same vibration — the same 
inspiration — wonderful ! 

The hours seemed fraught with benedic- 
tion. The brooding Mother-Presence was 
very near; but a gossipy neighbor called 
and broke the spell. She grated harshly, 
like the laugh of rude boys when the play 
is at the climax, or the slamming of heavy 
doors when the church is hushed in prayer. 



'^Wc shall rest, and Faith, we shall need it, 
Lie down for an y^on or two, 
Till the Master of all good workmen 
Shall put us to work anew\" 




E were debating the question 
should we give up our sim- 
ple life and enter the struggle 
in a larger town. It took us 
long to decide, the liberty we 
enjoyed was not easily surrendered. We 
pi6lured a home of our own, such as I had 
visioned even as early as that first visit of 
Aunt Sarah Silvering, with garden, flowers, 
and above all, the freedom of the country. 
Over against this stood the possibility of 
larger advantages, broader associations and 
friendships, offered by the cit}^ 

There were days when we imagined we 
bought a lot, built our house, laid out our 
garden, planted our seeds and felt the satis- 
fa6lion of creation. Then came days when 
we longed for the fri6lion and stimulus of 
the crowd, and the dear garden flowers — 
daflbdils and daisies — seemed to hang their 
heads and talk of rank disloyalty. 

We betrayed our first love. The city 
won us in the end. 



g6 A soul's love letter 

We adjusted ourselves to our new en- 
vironment by degrees, and drew about us 
our own "select few." To be in the "friend- 
ship of the many," spontaneous with those 
who are not upon your plane, is to court 
misunderstanding. To cater, be other than 
yourself, is to stultify and dwarf. With 
crampings and caterings, conventionalities 
and corsets, what wonder that society pro- 
duces so many insipid nonenities who make 
a safety-valve of fads and fashion. 

If your spiritual Hebrew, crushed and 
persecuted, can no longer breathe out poetry 
and sing psalms, he can concentrate his 
powers upon commercialism, until your Job 
and David differentiate into Shylocks, to 
sway a scepter — money — more powerful 
than any royal family of modern Europe. 

Shall we be wise? To conserve force 
is not enough. Dire6l it well, else ruin 
results. 



Par. "Oh, but to find a wise man. A wise man!" 
He?'. "Yes, indeed, a wise man !" 




ISTORY went on making. 
Financial anxiety was be- 
coming a thing of the past. 
What a jump forward will 
the old world take when 



"No one shall work for money and no one shall 

work for fame ; 
But each for the joy of the working." 

A young legal man of fine fibre once said 
to me, "I tell you this is killing me. You 
see I'm on the fence. Over on one side I 
see brotherhood, altruism; over on the other 
it is 'every man for himself and the devil 
take the hindmost!' If I fail it is because 
I am not God enough for one, nor beast 
enough for the other." 

Much the same thing faces the young 
man who dabbles in lotions and potions. 

Indeed, a member of the Veritas Club, 
a minister, says that the merchant, the ban- 
ker, the manufa6lurer and the dentist, as 
also the lawyer and the do6tor, got to quite 
frankly discussing the blufis, fakes and tricks 
of their vocations, one night, when he was 
compelled to suggest changing the subje(?t. 



Life struck sharp on death makes awful lightning." 




N epidemic of diphtheria 
that swept the city during the 
winter after our arrival, left 
desolation in many homes. I 
knew each case, as did the 
do6tor himself Schools were closed, and 
every home was in fear and trembling, 
never knowing when the dreaded thing 
might enter. It was not rare for every 
child in a family to be taken. 

I remember one case, where the pros- 
perous, happy parents had never before 
suffered bereavement. Within six days 
their two beautiful children were stricken 
fatally. Little Clarence was apparently 
convalescent, when the father came for the 
do6for in breathless haste. 

"Do(5for, my boy cannot speak aloud," 
and catching my husband by the arm with 
a look and tone that combined threat and 
helpless appeal, he said, "Don't you dare 
let that child die!" 

Two hours later, the man entered the 
office with halting gait and hardened face. 
I broke the silence forcefully. "Dear man," 



A soul's love letter 99 

I said, "others endure even greater loss." 
"Oh don't talk to me like that," he flashed 
out, reproachfully, "It won't feed a hungry 
man to know that others starve." 
I felt helpless. He left repeating: 
"Nothing to live for — nothing to live for." 
Before the week ended they made an- 
other little sleeping place for ten-year-old 
Annie, beside her brother Clarence. 

A week later, the father sought me out, 
and taking my hand, said quietly: 

"I had to learn — but I'd be so thankful 
to just have little Annie back again." 



Lore, 



"Don't fear. It's all going to come out right, dear." 




GRAY hair in the coil of 
brown turned the current of 
my thoughts that morning 
when I found myself stand- 
ing before the glass at thirty 
years. I looked back over the pathway I 
had traveled, up to this full womanhood, and 
somehow the valley and the mountain top 
experiences blended into a wonderfully har- 
monious whole — a beautiful pi6lure. 

So some scientists claim the inharmoni- 
ous, rasping noises of lower earth blend 
together in the upper atmosphere, making 
mellow music. 

Brush and hand-mirror lay in m}^ lap, idle. 
Thirty years ago ! In the old wood-bottomed 
rocking chair I saw a little heap of proto- 
plasm, cradled in white and carefully guard- 
ed. How strange! Scarcely self-conscious, 
helpless, it lay there. And I wondered if 
my mother felt as I knew too well I should 
feel, if I owned all myself — a little thing 
like that. They gave it a name to distinguish 
it from other little protoplasmic masses, and 
then the little mass learned to feel "I am I" 



A soul's love letter ioi 

over against ''You are you,'- — and history 
commenced. The little "I am I" mass went 
out to look for happiness, even as others 
before it had done from the very beginning. 

There were baby days, then little toddler 
days; little school girl days — dark days — 
ambitious days — love-hungry days — disap- 
pointing days — days of temptation. 

"Oh how thankful I am today," burst 
from me, "how I love everybody — every 
differentiated soul atom ever sent into this 
strange old world." 

The little children passing, — I wanted to 
kiss them; the hardened-looking laborers, — 
wanted to take their hands, and even the 
woman gossip across the street, who said 
such unkind things, — yes, I loved her too. 
This was a red-letter day when I could sing 
with Pippa: 
''God's in his Heaven; all's well with the world." 

I was growing stronger each day. The 
world would call us happy and prosperous. 
The home we had seen in mind so longf 
was to become a reality. Days of economy 
were over. Those summer days we spent 
our spare time talking over and arranging 
the details of the new home. 



I02 A soul's love LETTER 



At last all the worry and bustle was over. 
Contentment was with us. We had been 
settled a week. I walked from room to room 
and looked and looked. 'Twas all so dear. 
From the hall where the old clock stood, 
at the top of the stairs, (we had made a 
special effort to get this rare old clock), I 
would go the rounds, satisfying that some- 
thing which only a woman can understand. 
Into the parlor at the left, where almost 
everything was "perfectly new," I went, 
feasting and satisfied. There were the new 
curtains, rugs and odd chairs that I had 
taken so much time in sele6ting, with the 
thought, "I'll get something good, for Fll 
have it all my life." 

In the right corner stood the piano. In 
the opposite corner stood my dear book- 
case, with the books peeping from behind 
the curtains which were half drawn. The 
white, asbestos-lined gas stove threw its 
flickering light and pleasant glow over all. 
Yes, it was just as it should be, I felt, as 
I passed on, through the folding doors, into 
the adjoining large room, all our very own. 
Open grate, books and periodicals, — this 
room had the verv smack of home. 



I03 

We had come into our new possessions 
in September. It was an October evening 
when we sat there making plans, still look- 
ing into the future, still hoping, dreaming. 

"I am very happy, very happy," he said, 
drawing my chair more closely, and look- 
ing into my eyes questioningly, as if he saw 
the faintest shadow still deep down there. 

'^It's all going to come out right, dear," 
he said in answer to a little tear that would 
force to the front while I answered bravely, 
smiling: 

"Oh that's just a joy evidence. You know 
tears always come when I am very happy." 

November of that year caught up a hand- 
ful of 06tober days, as she came, and gave 
them to us lavishly. But the days were 
growing shorter, and more leaden, as the 
annual Thank Day approached, which I 
had planned to celebrate with friends and 
regulation turkey dinner, in my own new 
home. 

You say, Arthur, I do not seem to you 
like other women, but I am a woman after 
all. Women, men, the best of us splen- 
didly human, "Divinities playing fool." 

I arranged my menu in mind — saw my 



I04 A soul's love letter 

new china and table accessories dainty, 
snowy and resplendent, — but I did not see 
all. The arrow that flieth in the dark was 
pointing toward my happiness, but I did 
not see it. How important seemed those 
salads and pastries, till the sharp twang of 
the bowstring brought me awake amid 
the everlasting verities. Yes, I had been 
sleeping, dreaming. We should celebrate 
Thanksgiving, but not together. He had 
just time to repeat again: "It's all going 
to come out right, dear," — then the great 
mystery of mysteries closed about him, and 
closed about me, while I walked alone. 



s 



'Think you it was only John on the Isle of Patmos 
that saw the heavens open?" 

ERHAPS this, too, was a 
dream from which I should 
presently awaken. I had of- 
ten dreamed dreams I wished 
to stay, of something warm 
and dear, nestling in my arms, and drink- 
ing at my breast. Yes, perhaps it was all 
a dream, but the hushed hours wore on, 
doors closed softly, people came and went 
whisperingly, sad faced friends kissed me 
tenderly, and I began to feel I should never 
waken to find this dreadful thing untrue. 
With dry, sleepless eyes I looked, trying 
to realize, trying to penetrate, trying to reach 
with focussed love-thoughts this one who 
always knew before. No answer came. 
Then a silent soul-cry went forth that must 
have vibrated to the uttermost parts of the 
universe for response. I waited — the an- 
swer came back sure enough: — 

'* Don't fear! It's all coming out right, dear." 

O limitless, exhaustless God-forces! 
There was no more tumult. Yes, there 
would come tired days and lonesome days, 
valley days and mountain top days; but 



io6 A soul's love letter 

these must come from the external person- 
ality. I had the secret of His presence 
where my soul could always hide. 

Never think, Arthur, the vi6tory was an 
easy one. They brought me back — how 
cold it was! The faint odor of flowers 
about the rooms made me heart-sick. Ev- 
ery room, every corner suggested our hap- 
piness — a memory. As they sang, so I re- 
peated prayerfully, "Lead, kindly light," 
walking again through the desolate rooms 
of my home, — home ? I had now no home, 
such as men rear, builded by hands. Even 
my simple childhood home was no more, 
and I thought of the one who said: 

''The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air 
have nests." 

What to do, — where to go, must be thought 
of with all the rest, and many days I stag- 
gered blindly, as one cruelly smitten, see- 
ing not the next step; but ever and anon 
that soul-voice sent its vibrations into my 
soul's innermost sandluary — the Holy of 
Holies — and the "peace that passeth under- 
standing" settled over all for the moment, 
while I rested satisfied. 




"To tame 
My mind down from Its own infinity, 
To live in narrow ways with little men, 
A common sight to every common eye." 

VIDENTLY I must remain 
quiet for the winter, at least 
until matters material could 
become adjusted to a new 
regime. For company's sake 
and to defray expenses, roomers were sug- 
gested. A modest notice in the "ad" column 
was soon answered by a young physician, 
who took, not only such books and instru- 
ments as were at his disposal, but, liking 
the location, took the offices and hung up 
his new sign. 

A young Danish minister who had charge 
of the spiritual welfare of a small flock of 
his countrymen in the South End, was the 
next roomer, who took up his abode in 
the house for the winter. 

And now I commenced to realize more 
than ever that life meant only a series of 
experiences, turning points. Nothing was 
permanent or secure, but transition and 
life-essence. 

So broken on the potter's wheel, I felt 



io8 



every one must be my friend and helper. 
But I grew to know what the banker who 
shook my hand so cordially with moist eyes 
meant when he said, ''Anything we can do 
for you will make us most happy." 

More difficult to understand was the 
whispered counsel of the woman who said, 

''Aren't you afraid to keep these two 
men roomers?" 

To my answer that I really enjoyed them 
both in my house, that they were consid- 
erate and courteous, she said, 

"Hm! You do not know the world." 

Well, if I didn't I should have to learn. 

I can understand why animals rend each 
other in hunger or passion. I can even ex- 
cuse my kind, when they strike, burn, rob 
and murder, if thwarted or wounded by a 
person or system, when they reach out for 
gratification ; but I could never yet under- 
stand that hideous impulse developed in 
many, perhaps all human animals, to sow 
destru6fion out of pure heedlessness or 
maliciousness, to make another poor and 
not enrich themselves. 

If there is no scientific explanation of 
this thing, here is an opening for a new "ism." 



A soul's love letter 109 

So runs my thought; but what am I? — 
An atomic center caught in the spiral of 
evolution, even as a million others, yea, 
even as every manifesting, vibrating uni- 
versal atom. The same origin, the same 
road to travel, the same destiny, and this 
my soul seems to realize right well. 

Formalities, red tape and business had 
been gone through with during that long 
winter. I could call matters practically 
settled. I vv^ould sell everything and go 
east to Boston town itself. My nerves 
asked for a change. The doctors advised 
it, — I would go. 



"To sell the boat and yet he loved her well ; how 
many a rough sea had he weathered in it." 




IKE Enoch, so felt I, as the 
last of my household gods 
passed into cold, stranger 
hands. All except my dear 
books. I could carry half a 
dozen of them, small burden and great com- 
pany; the rest a friend stored for me. 

Thirty years I had fun6lioned, evolved, 
ran, walked, up and down, in and out, here 
and there, along the roads, lanes and by-paths 
of western New York and northwestern 
Pennsylvania. I could not go away without 
emotion. Tears followed one another over 
my cheeks as the jarring, plunging, shriek- 
ing train moved rapidly away with me that 
day toward the New England metropolis. 
Memories came thronging thick and fast, 
as the shadows lengthened over the land- 
scape and shut out from my sight the fa- 
miliar scenes of a lifetime. 

"And had not his heart spoken with That which 
being everywhere lets none who speak with it seem 
all alone, surely the man had died for very solitude." 



"At times I almost dream 

I too have spent a life the sage's way 

And tread once more famiHar paths." 




OMING into the South Ter- 
minal station, next morning, I 
thought of the woman who 
said if she couldn't be in 
heaven, she was glad to have 
gotten as far as Boston. 

I found a suitable boarding place with 
little trouble, revelled in soap and water, 
took a short nap, dressed, ate luncheon and 
went out for to see. A step brought me 
to the public library on Copley square. 

What an accumulation was before me, of 
the best thoughts, of the sanest ones, of all 
time! For three thousand years or more 
rockets had been sent out into the dark- 
ness, to signal other voyagers sailing over 
the ocean of experience, who cried out: 
"Watchman, what of the night?" 

A blue rocket, a white-light rocket, a 
blood-red rocket; but the spe6trum reveals 
about the same elementals. I found Sargent 
had left a portion of his soul on the walls, 
which I should study later. 

In a glass case I saw two bronzed hands, 



112 A soul's love letter 

one a slender, veined woman's hand, repre- 
senting the hand that wrote "Aurora Leigh," 
clasped in the strong, manly hand that wrote 
— well, everything, "Pippa," "Saul," "Rabbi 
Ben Ezra," and made Andrea Del Sarto say 
to Lucretia: 

"Your soft hand is a woman of itself, and mine 
the man's bared breast she curls inside." 

The public garden was the place for rest 
that afternoon. I could watch the jostling 
people out on Boylston and Tremont streets 
as they hurried along up and down. Where 
were they going? What was the haste? 
Universal space before them and eternit}^ 
back of them. No chance of missing — 
doomed to get there. 

I read on a monument through the trees: 
"And there shall be no more pain." 

I thought I could believe it all, and more 
perhaps than was intended, for the monu- 
ment commemorated the discovery of ether 
by a Boston physician. Even so much was 
advancement — a great blessing. But may 
the time not come when a larger meta- 
physics shall indeed help our physics? 



"The Divine relation which in all times unites a 
o^reat man to other men." 




EVERAL days I spent visit- 
ing places of historic interest, 
until a hazy afternoon found 
me at Mount Auburn. You 
know too well, Arthur, the 
painful ravishment that comes to the soul 
who meets God face to face, and alone. 
Did those of old time feel something of this 
when they said, '^No one can look upon 
His face and live?" They had their burn- 
ing bushes, too. 

Out of the hurry and scurry, rumble and 
jumble of the city of the living, into the 
peaceful serenity of the city of the dead. 
Such dead! Longfellow, Lowell, Holmes, 
Sumner, Brooks, Agassiz, Choate, Channing, 
Booth, Charlotte Cushman and Fanny Fern, 
— only a few months ago they were jost- 
ling along with the crowd, down Boylston 
street, out Tremont, over there in the busy 
metropolis. Where were they this day when 
I came so far to see them? I wanted to 
tell them I had seen their signals afar off 
and felt more secure in the darkness. 
On the plain marble slab before me I read: 



114 ^ soul's love letter 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 
Born 1807-D1ED 1882. 

Some years before in a tiny cell, lay the 
latent creations of the man who was to come 
forth and be known as Henry Wadsworth 
Longfellow. The dormant cell, touched by 
another cell, felt the shiver of life and be- 
gan to stir. Days passed, and that little cell 
— clothed in its right mind — walked among 
its kind, self-conscious, brother-conscious, 
God-conscious; suffering, but singing. 

The myriad of thought entities sent out 
from this soul centre, that touched my own 
years before, now came thronging back. 
Listening, the charming metre of " Hiawa- 
tha" beat upon me once more. I heard the 
priest saying again to Evangeline: 

*'Man is unjust but God is just. 
And finally justice triumphs." 

Bending lower, I fancied I could hear 
Paul Fleming reading aloud to Mary Ash- 
burton, out among the Swiss hills: 

''Into the Silent Land! 

Ah, who shall lead us thither? 

Clouds in the evening sky more darkly gather. 

And shattered wrecks lie thicker on the strand. 

Who leads us with a gentle hand 

Thither, oh thither. 

Into the Silent Land?" 



A SOUI.'S LOVE LETTER II5 

Then came reje6lion, the struggle and the 
vi(5lory, for Mary's heart did not awake until 
she read "Hyperion.'' 

I drew away relu6lantly from this one 
who knew so well the story of strength 
and suffering. 

I heard Lowell plead again that day for 
brotherhood and human freedom. Holmes 
grew genial over the teacups, and Phillips 
Brooks talked of deep things with childlike 
simplicity. 

I saw Charlotte Cushman and Edwin 
Booth walking the boards again, thrilled and 
thrilling, and Louis Agassiz working pa- 
tiently — deciphering the story of the earth, 
written on her rocks and fossils. 

Climbing the tower, dizzily I looked off 
over the smoky city. The dome of the State 
House loomed up proudly on Beacon Hill. 
Trolley cars were crossing and recrossing the 
Charles, steam cars and ferry boats were in 
sight, carrying their loads of human freight. 
So far I saw. But clouds closed about the 
things I fain would see. 

Goethe's last words were, "More light." 
Hugo plead for an extension of life that the 
unwritten volumes pent up within his mar- 



ii6 A soul's love letter 



vellous brain might come forth into the 
light of day. 

This cannot be all, I thought, God will 
never allow such waste, — in the universal 
economy all is safe. 

The lights of Cambridge shone through 

the rain and mist when I changed cars for 

Boston; but "the feeling of sadness and 

longing that my soul could not resist," had 

left me, when I sang in the chapel, before 

leaving Mount Auburn, 

''Nearer, my God, to Thee, 
Nearer to Thee, 
E'en though it be a cross 
That raiseth me." 




"Well to live long and see the darkness breaking, and 

the day coming ! 
The day when soul shall not thrust back soul that 

would come to it." 

'VE met something out here, 
Arthur, that points toward 
heaven as surely as the buds 
and tender grass. A young 
girl of seventeen years, taken 
from school and companionship five years 
ago to do the household work and care for 
an invalid mother. She gives me the soul 
touch and I give her a few small things in 
the way of orthography, etymology, syntax, 
etc. The balance shows me the debtor. 
Yesterday she handed me lines which I 
copy as I know you will be interested: 

''THOUGHTS. 

In perfect trust she waits 

Nor cares what the morrow may bring forth. 

Why should she, one little soul, 

Go struggling through this life.^ 

Had she not suffered much — 

Enough to learn, that struggle as she might, 

She could not change the laws 

Of One who gave her Life. 

Is it not better to accept His will.? 

Does she not know that all is for the best.? 



ii8 A soul's love letter 

Love, beauty, in all the simple life around, 

The flowers, the birds, and rolling hills — 

Simple did I say? Dear one, 

Simple because we cannot understand 

The purpose of that great Almighty hand 

That rules this world 

And all the worlds unknown to human mind.' 



'*She sat by the window idly musing, 

Watching the throngs of souls that passed her by. 

Some with impatient feet were hurrying 

The sordid pleasures of their life to test. 

Would they drain the cup to find 

In its bitter dregs dissatisfa6lion, 

Telling their lives were spent in waste? 

Here passes a face so lonely and so sad, 

There another with halting gait and crime-marked 

face : — 
How she longs to take their hands. 
To make their tired souls glad. 
Telling them that by the grace of God, 
Here waits a longing sister soul 
Striving to reach the same great goal. 
She turns away. They would not understand. 
*Oh for the time,' she murmurs, 
'When we can take each other's hand 
With perfect love and sympathy, 
Then we shall understand.' 
There are many years to wait, dear. 
Uncounted in the great forever, 
Years in which our souls must grow. 
Before we all shall reach that goal. 
And merge in one great Universal Soul." 



I^ 

There's a lump in my throat, and tears 
come as I write of this little one who 
comes so near and dear. Good stay with 
her. Shut in so many years she cannot 
ring the bell at a neighbor's door without 
great fear and trembling. I imagine she 
could rap with some confidence upon other 
doors, for instance the house of many man- 
sions not made with hands, where real 
swell quality dwell, too. That would be a 
case of the Old Folks at Home — kinship. 
These are some of the wayside weeds that 
the world tramples upon unheeding. Trans- 
planted to some Gardiner estate what would 
we get then? 




''Awaking with a start I depart, 

Whither 1 know not ; but the hour's gone by.** 

UITE a little time had come 
and gone since I stepped 
from the train that morning, 
a stranger in a strange land. 
But I had learned to love 
Boston and its people. The stern New- 
England winter was past and spring days 
were with us at last. 

My first outing, I decided, must be a 
visit to old Concord. 

The day came at last, a perfe6l day, when 
even the cattle, as the seer says, lie on the 
ground and think great thoughts. 

I placed a light lunch in my hand-bag, 
and started out early. It would be another 
one of my days — dream-days I'll call them. 
Arthur, do we not all see beautiful pictures, 
hear wonderful melodies, live Christ-like in 
our dream-world? Gladly then would we 
too send up a rocket — hold up our signal, 
saying, "Behold! fellow mortals, this I see, 
this I hear, this I dream." 

What wonder we feel misunderstood 
when our instruments are faulty, or we 
fail in manipulation? 



A soul's love letter 121 



"Take you to all important points ma'am!" 
said the eager hackman, handing me a neat 
descriptive card. The day was before me, 
I chose to walk. 

Out past the old cemetery the road led 
me, until I recognized the place where for 
many years lived the unostentatious man 
who sent the schools to school — Ralph 
Waldo Emerson. 

God had indeed let loose a thinker on 
His planet when this one came. 

I took my way to the orchard opposite 
the house, sat down under the trees and fell 
to musing and hero-worshipping, as I sur- 
veyed everything in detail. I found nothing 
unusual, — there were the out-buildings, the 
trees, the woodpile — quite commonplace. 
Why, how and where did he find it all? 

True, it was a beautiful spot of earth, — 
this Concord round about; but cold and heat 
and famine and fear could come here, too, 
bringing the story of hunger and pain. 

I sat on — ceasing for the time to be "im- 
portuned by emphatic trifles." But three 
girls on wheels coming down the Lexing- 
ton road wakened me with that shock which 
comes when the a6tual crushes into the ideal. 



122 



" Do you think she looks pretty, mornings, 
in that red wrapper?" asked Number One. 

"No, but she thinks she does," answered 
Number Two. 

"Isn't this the old Emerson place," said 
Number Three — and they were out of sight. 

Getting up slowly and brushing the dust 
from my skirt, I moved on, out the Lex- 
ington road a short distance, to the old 
homes of Hawthorne and Alcott. 

Alcotts, father and daughter, almost as 
beautiful to contemplate as that other royal 
pair, Robert and Elizabeth Browning. 

Nearly opposite these places, I found a 
half dozen men, working with a road ma- 
chine. An old Irishman stood leaning upon 
his shovel as I approached. When asked 
for information regarding these places of 
interest, he appeared very willing to open 
his stock of knowledge. 

"Ye shpake to a man of fifty year in the 
town, lady," he said proudly. "I married 
me woman from the home of Misther Em- 
erson, yonder, I did." 

I was interested and the old man con- 
tinued with animation: 

"That Misther Emerson was no man for 



A SOULS LOVE LETTER 1 23 

money-makin' at all. He wuz jist great on 
that ere stuff, philosophy — he wuz." 

He then proceeded to relate the story of 
the sage failing to teach a young calf to 
drink from the pail, when his Bridget came 
to the rescue, with the practical device ol 
introducing her finger into the calf's mouth 
and leading it to the milk so. 

As I left, the man said, shaking his head, 
thoughtfully, "Well, I'm thinkin' as how 
God made ivery wan good fer suthin' er 
other, and there haint no two of us alike, 
ye moind." 

It was late afternoon when I climbed the 
ridge in Sleepy Hollow, and threw myself 
down — tired, near the grave of Emerson. 

The cool, mossy ground beneath me and 
the shady canopy trees above, no roar, no 
smoke, no screeching nor combat here. 

Overhead, through the foliage, I watched 
a soft, fleecy cloud, sailing along serenely. 
Where was it going? What was its mission? 

Off through another opening in the green, 
the crescent moon hung pale and filmy as 
the cloud itself. Somewhere, other eyes — 
tired eyes — happy eyes — were looking up at 



124 A SOULS LOVE LETTER 

this same cloud and moon — wondering, fear- 
ing, waiting, trusting. 

And that moon was looking down, per- 
haps, on the old farm home, with mother's 
neglected flower garden and the thousand 
and one familiar nooks and corners of the 
early days. 

Then my thoughts ran along to my own 
broken home, and another grave far away, 
marked by a simple stone, on which vv^as 
written: 

"It's all going to come out right, dear." 

Even then, while I laid my hands firmly 
on the altar bars, all unconscious, I was 
drawing near the brink again, where through 
long days and months the forces let me 
hang balancing over black abysses in seem- 
ing mockery. Darkened stairways! Cries 
and sobbings! Mother voices. Trust and 
slumber. 




"And by a sleep so say we end the heartache, and 
The thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to." 

IE Still, dear." The words 
sounded strange and far 
away, but I obeyed with 
childlike trustfulness and 
forgot again. 

It was midnight when I opened my eyes 
and tried to understand. Oh yes, the white 
bed, the screen, the dim light, the nurse 
bending over me, yes, and the pain. 

"It's all over," said the sympathetic girl, 
kissing me gently — and then I remembered. 

Long weeks of illness, ministering hands, 
but stranger still, the hospital, iodoformic 
odors, the anaesthetic room, the cone over 
my face, the first choking sensation — then 
peace and forgetfulness. 

Oh! brother, friend, when they told me I 
might never go about again, I had a chance 
to test my philosophy, and it stood the test. 
But in those first waking moments great 
weakness was upon me. Weakness of body 
and weakness of spirit; and I could not be 
grateful for their hot water bags, their salt 
solutions and their strychnine hypos, that 
gave me back to consciousness. 



126 A soul's love letter 

I wanted to go back to the land of for- 
getfulness — into the silent land — and cross 
no more bridges. The road I had come 
seemed so rough and mountainous, I was 
so tired — I never wanted to contend any 
more; but Nature heeded not. Who and 
what was I to be heeded ? Just that same 
restless, unsatisfied protoplasmic mass that 
had wasted so much energy, scrambling for 
happiness, ever since that othei day, when 
she, or rather it, was thrown out into ob- 
je6tive existence with a cry. 

And so I lay there, helpless, and thought 
and thought, my mind circling round and 
round ever to the same point, like a man 
lost in a deep, dark forest. Sometimes I 
was in the seventh heaven, trusting, serene, 
most satisfied; then with a turn of the wheel 
fear was upon me. Beads of perspiration 
moistened my pallid face at the thought of 
accumulating expense — no home, and the 
sordid world out there grinding. 

Who can understand the correlation of 
the higher and the lower, or explain the 
blending of physical, mental and spiritual? 

Is the One Force, the basic principle, the 
real essence in everything, pressing on in 



A soul's love letter 127 

advanced or retarded evolutionary proces- 
ses? "Is nothing either good or bad, but 
thinking makes it so?" 

There I lay so still, and thought. So 
many things to think about ! So many 
questions to be answered! So many prob- 
lems to solve! 

In other crises I had learned the secret? 
but we forget so easily. Persistent self! 
Source of all our annoyance! O God! 
must these things be, ere we shall think — 
ere we shall think? 




''The place seemed new 
And strange as death. 
The white bed, with others 

Like graves dug side by site, at measured lengths, 
And quiet people walking in and out. 
With wonderful low voices and soft steps." 

HE additional expense made 
me almost glad the private 
rooms were all occupied, and 
so the fourth day I was taken 
into my little corner, in ward 
C, to make room for the newly operated. 
The grotesque dress of the convalescents 
served a purpose in taking my attention, 
momentarily, out of the circuit it had been 
traveling. Old gray wool and cotton skirts 
often hung below the unironed blue ging- 
ham "mother Hubbards," and in many cases 
the gray cotton socks worn were unmated. 
But what were faded gowns and cotton 
socks where so much sorrow lingered.^ Over 
in the second bed a young Swede woman 
lay dying. Each evening, after a day of la- 
bor, came the devoted young husband, who 
spoke broken English, and looked all that 
anxious love could express. 

"Take me home, no one loves me here!" 
said the woman, as she threw herself fran- 



A SOUTHS LOVE LETTER 1 29 

tically and her talk grew more wild and 
delirious. 

No special attention could possibly be 
given by the already overworked nurses 
of that great municipal institution. Dying 
woman, tired nurses, worried doctors, charit- 
able donors and magistrates, all were caught 
and held vicSlims by the greedy monster of 
commercialism. 

Nineteen hundred years had passed since 
a manger-born One taught, "Inasmuch as ye 
have done it unto one of the least of these, 
my brethren, ye have done it unto Me." 

We call ourselves His followers and here 
was how we followed, singing psalms, wav- 
ing palms, erecting great cathedrals to the 
glory of God and the memory of millionaires. 

O consistency! Much I marvelled. Yes, 
compassion was in the world; earnest, honest 
men and women, working along the lines 
of expediency, while the tragedy stalked 
before all eyes and Christ was crucified 
again daily. And Arthur — I could not help 
it — in all reverence and sincerity, I grew 
to think that perhaps there were more fools 
in the world than hypocrites. For what 
sane person could ever hope to live the 



I30 

Golden Rule in a social order, founded on 
competition, that fosters selfishness and all 
that is anti-Christ ? Anyone in such a sys- 
tem, who carries altruism farther than the 
Sunday school class, will very quickly be 
overtaken b}^ the poorhouse or the insane 
asvlum. 

I could not blame the tired nurse who 
said, crossly, of that neglected, dying sister, 
'^Well, she's getting all she pays for!" 

That nurse was talking "business." She 
had become immersed to the ears, soaked 
full of an economic environment that calls 
the unit of value the Almighty Dollar, dis- 
regards precious human life, tells us we are 
living in an arrested era, that competition 
is the law of life, quotes "the survival of 
the fittest," and comes back at you with the 
idea of future reward and the "utility of 
sorrow." 

No — I had not forgotten— I believed then 
as now, that the whole tendency, through 
long stretches of time, must be toward bet- 
terment; I tried to keep serene, but evolu- 
tionary battles may be quite as deadly as 
those of revolution. I was a silent witness 
to only a detail of the struggle of the ages 



A SOUI.'S LOVE LETTER I3I 

when I lay helpless on my white cot and 
saw the coming of that husband. White 
serenes and silence were about the little 
bed he had visited so faithfully. He was 
poor, he was unlearned, he was helpless — 
''crunched in the jaws of a theft" — but he 
had a heart, made of common, mortal heart- 
stuff — he had loved and was bereaved, like 
others. 

Where flowed the wealth created by this 
hard-worked son of earth, that the woman 
he loved must suffer and die in acknowl- 
edged negle6t? 

Creation and accumulation — poverty and 
exploitation — would this old world ever 
work its way out of sordid materialism ? 
Would men, seeing the women who bear 
their children die negledled, keep their 
anger forever? 

I kept thinking. 




''One arrives at art only by roads barred to the vulgar- 
By the road of prayer, of purity of heart ; 
By confidence in the wisdom of the Eternal 
and even in that which is incomprehensible." 

WENT to the city by trol- 
ley yesterday, and some more 
experiences came to me that 
I feel like telling you. One 
concerned chiefly a certain 
hoboish looking individual who sat at the 
further end of the seat I had chosen. There 
were three passengers when I boarded the 
car, but it began to fill rapidly as we ap- 
proached the city. As time passed, your 
democratic sister was pushed along into 
closer relations with brother hobo. One 
seating space was left, and T peeked out of 
the corner of my eye at my neighbor. Hat 
slouched, coat shiny and frayed, as were the 
pants; shoes rusty and full of holes — out 
of one great hole protruded a toe, taking 
wisely nature's line of least resistence. The 
hands, neck and ears, so near, brought to 
mind the advertisements overhead, telling 
of porcelain baths and ivory soap that floats. 
Unshaven face, teeth, hair, nails — but just 
here came the fat woman, one of the typi- 



A soul's love letter 



^33 



cal kind loaded with shopping utensils and 
an umbrella to poke into your ear and 
knock against your hat. Puffing, panting, 
perspiring and red in uncomfortable cloth- 
ing, yet under all circumstances smiling and 
beaming — God bless fat women ! The lady 
must be seated. My right hand neighbor, 
of the wizzen, thin- lipped variety, looked 
at me menacingly and nudged me along. 
Closer proximit}' to my friend on the left 
brought into operation other sense centers. 
01fa6tory nerves were carrying up messages 
and up went the nose in revolt. Auditory 
nerves told of the wheezy, rattling breath- 
ing, and I counted the blocks to the next 
transfer station. 

No, Arthur, I didn't for a moment shift 
my basic idea of brotherhood. To be con- 
sistent does not necessarily mean that one 
must eat, sleep, converse upon art or philos- 
ophy with a black man, a hobo or a wood- 
chuck. Just be merciful. Don't put your 
heel upon their necks. In due time great 
evolutionary forces sweeping round about 
will take care of them. Hands off ! That 
hobo has all eternity and all space to clean 
up in. 



"Sick and in prison and ye visited Me; I was a 
stranger and ye took Me in." 




OUR weeks had passed at the 
hospital. I could sit up and 
walk about carefully. I was 
told I could soon go home. 
_ Go home! And then I fell 
to planning. 

The next day a plainly dressed, serene 
looking woman halted before my bed and 
asked the privilege of placing some relig- 
ious literature upon my table. "We are 
told 'whom the Lord loveth He chas- 
teneth,'" said the gentle voice. The face 
and voice won me. 

I answered, "Something says 'fear not.'" 
A gleam of pleasure shot out from the 
woman's eyes. She asked, "When do you 
go home?" 

A word of explanation, and she led me 
to the dressing room, as gently as a sister. 
Arrangements were made for my removal 
without delay. 

That evening found me resting on the 
sofa in the cosy sitting room of a wood- 
carver's simple home, while "mother set 
the table" in the neat kitchen dining room 



A soul's love letter 135 

adjoining; then waited with me until six- 
thirt}^ when "Pa" and Walter, the son, 
came from their work. 

''God bless this food to our bodies' use," 
prayed the father, as we bowed our heads 
reverently over the supper table, "bless the 
stranger who has come among us, strength- 
en her, body and soul, so that she may not 
die, but live and declare the works of the 
Lord." 

The beauty and simplicity in this home 
calmed the troubled waters of my restless 
spirit. 

Three months I lived with these God- 
people, away from rasping, sordid things; 
and then, growing stronger, I went back 
into the vortex with my faith once more 
strengthened in babes and sucklings. 

When we run against an obstacle in the 
dark we realize our rate of speed. I found 
I was gathering momentum somewhat again 
when they handed me a telegram : " Father 
is failing, can you come?" 

Shout, contend, press and counter-press 
in human pandemonium! Let me go aside 
to refle6f a moment, to take myself into the 
presence of the old mystery and the Silence. 




^'All the happy silent lovers, 
All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous 

and the wicked. 
All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all 
the dying. 

Pioneers ! O Pioneers ! " 

OOR, dear father. I didn't 
know how much I loved him 
until I entered the quiet room 
with its faint medicinal odors. 
The pure white of the linen 
about the sick bed made a fitting back- 
ground for a face of character, intensified 
by days of pain and waiting. The fine, firm 
mouth, acquiline nose, and dark, deep -set 
eyes, beneath a square forehead, spoke of 
other things than stumps and stones and 
sordidness. Mayhap one of Carlyle's trage- 
dies had been enafted here — the cramping 
of a nature with capacity for grand achieve- 
ment. 

I had always been timid and distant with 
my father until this moment when all re- 
serve was gone — I knew him, and he knew 
me. O shy, strange something deep within 
— magic working, inherent — we know you 
when you show yourself, and we trust, as 
babes suck sureliest in the dark. If all else 



A soul's love letter 137 

be lies and vanity, here is reality. It was 
a joy those few remaining days, to sit by 
that bedside holding the hand that had lost 
all hardness, and tell in parts and snatches 
this story of my life, even as I am telling 
it to you. Sometimes sweetly and serenely, 
often brokenly, but always for the sake of 
confiding — oh, confiding the thing on our 
hearts to those who understand, and under- 
standing, love ! All along the life journey 
new surprises were lying in wait for me. 
I was continually chancing upon the rarest 
gems hidden away in rubbish piles and 
obscure places. Earlier or later, even so 
had the treasure houses of the heart and 
soul opened up to me. Friend, lover, 
mother, brother, and now I had found a 
father. 



So mothers have God's license to be missed." 




OTHERS, yes, and fathers 
too; and I should soon be 
missing mine. But it is not 
for those who know and love 
to walk despairing and un- 
consoled when separation comes. No, it's 
of some one gone away who did not know, 
but should have known. True soul com- 
munion comes very near bridging over 
the chasm between the living and the 
dead. But to sit at the same table with 
one who does not speak your language, 
does not know — here is space indeed, that 
no wire or wireless message can ever 
overcome. 

Today so runs my dream. 



"Who in all this world 
Has never hungered? Woe unto him who has 
Found the meal enough!" 




ND now came my turn to 
listen. Father and daughter 
each to other, confessed and 
confessor. And when stript 
of all detail, how very much 
alike look the heart experiences of all men. 
Onward, up the way led us through baby 
days, the boy days, the dreaming days, the 
ambitious days, the crushed in the bud days, 
fall into line, march with the van days, to 
the hardened, no way out days. Turn, turn, 
grind, grind, till the vital fires burned low, 
the wheels moved slowly, belts slackened 
and the clatter and clang of machinery 
dropped into an almost painful hush. ''Yes, 
little girl," said my father one evening as 
I lay with my head beside his on the pil- 
low, ''Yes, even helpless and pained as I 
am now, I am feasting upon you every mo- 
ment and wondering what happiness might 
mean, if we could go over it all and have 
mother back again. No, no, not with things 
as they were, God knows; but with some 
social arrangement more human, more adap- 



140 A soul's love letter 

ted to love, life and liberty. Some order 
where men did not make it a business to 
deal in blood and flesh. Yes, I know, I am 
just as guilty as any of them. I tried to 
grab and plunder myself, regardless; but, 
evidently, my genius didn't lie in that di- 
rection. Perhaps I wasn't one of the Attest 
to survive, that they tell so much about. 
I guess nobody wants anyone but the Attest 
to survive, but will the test of the fittest 
always be as it is in the tiger's jungle? It 
looks as if something else ought to enter 
into things. To be fighting and plundering 
always to find out who's fittest doesn't seem 
like peace on earth or good will, does it? 
It sounds strange to hear your father talk 
of peace and good will, doesn't it, dear, but 
it's come to me at last that we are some- 
thing; more than animals, Mabel. Plato would 
find himself outdone in a prize fight, and* I 
imagine Jesus wouldn't feel much at home 
down amidst the bull and bear business of 
Wall street. 

"When men began to take wives, and 
children followed, we find love and mutual 
interest came into affairs. The family and 
tribes came about first, then cities, states 



HI 

and nations arose. It looks now as if some 
still greater combine of the world's forces 
must result sooner or later, No, child, I 
don't imagine that everybody will become 
angelic in a moment. We've been creeping 
along up, it's quite a distance yet to the top. 
Once we thought we couldn't rid ourselves 
of black slavery, but we did, and now we 
have to deal with white slavery. It won't 
do to get discouraged, but go right on break- 
ing shackles. We may say to men, ^Be free, 
be free,' but they can't be very free with 
society sitting on their backs. We may 
preach to men, 'Be good, be good,' but how 
can they be very good and be at war all the 
time. All business is founded on competi- 
tion, competition means war. Golden Rules 
and war can't mix, any more than oil and 
water. I wonder men don't see there's a 
screw loose somewhere; but I didn't myself 
until I was almost crushed alive in the old 
machine. We've been in this condition of 
things so long we really do not know what 
brutes we have become. Things happen 
around us every day that would shock, or 
ought to shock a civilized man; but it's like 
the night, so common we don't think any- 



142 A soul's love letter 

thing about it. If a widow has a few pen- 
nies laid by for a rainy day, and a fittest 
to survive fellow comes along and robs her 
of her little sum, she may starve or go on 
the street. Nobody cares. The}^ call such 
men clever fellows and pass it along. 

''And then to think of the great waste to 
the world in invention and beautiful things! 
Crusts, clothes, corners to stand in, come up 
for first consideration. Side issues take their 
chances. But men love to express and cre- 
ate, and we get some things w^orth while 
now and then in spite of it all. But what 
would we have if men stopped trying to 
trip each other, and all pulled together? 
The thought of my own wasted life doesn't 
so much hurt me now, as the thought of 
my own hardness and cruelty. But, Mabel, 
when you sit here and stroke my head, I 
feel it means forgiveness, and I guess they'll 
all forgive me. I couldn't see any way out. 
You know one grows dazed, benumbed. If 
it's a shoestring or a seat in the synagogue, 
selfishness controls. No, child, I'm not tired. 
It rests me to talk to you. It gives me more 
confidence to walk out into the darkness, 
though I really never feared. I guess after 



LETTER 143 



all it will be all right somewhere." After 
musing a moment father continued, "Human 
love teaches us a great deal. Oh! if I had 
taken time to love more. I might have — 
well, no matter. I remember the summer 
morning, j^ears ago, when 3^ou lirst came. I 
let you cuddle your little soft face in my 
sunburnt neck a moment, your warm baby 
breath was upon me, your tiny life pulses 
throbbing with blood so like my own, and 
great swells of feeling vibrated through me. 
God, such love! but it's a moment out of 
years. Then the panic of '73 came rushing 
down upon us, and I forgot — forgot and 
became a machine, and worse, for machines 
can't get tired and anxious, hard and cruel. 
Insanity! And still they tell us we must 
keep up this coniii(5f forever — contend and 
fight and murder because men grow so! 

"Later your brothers came and filled the 
house with books — books of the head and of 
the heart. I picked up bits here and there. 
I opened my eyes — commenced to think 
again, and I found however reasoning and 
methods may differ, men deep down are 
brothers. They all love love, and hate hate. 
Then came the new and satisfying conscious- 
ness that the whole grand drift is toward 
world-wide brotherhood. What a dream! 











m 





''I say to thee do thou repeat, 

To the first man thou niayest meet, 

On road, highway, or open street, 

That we and he, all men move 

Under a canopy of love. 

Broad as the blue sky above. 

That anger and fear and pain 

All are shadows vain. 

That death itself shall not remain." 

HE clock struck out the clear 
stroke of one, and I started 
up nervously. "Don't, don't 
child," said my father gently, 
"I've been watching you rest 
and it seemed almost like that other time 
over thirty years ago." "But," I suggested, 
"the medicine, father!" "Oh, I know, but 
there's better medicine than bottles hold." 
I gave the quieting potion to my patient 
and replenished the wood lire to keep out 
the chill of early spring, then returned to 
the bedside. I would not call my brother 
as usual that night, for I felt much refreshed 
with my three hours sleep. My father, how- 
ever, was insistent, and I complied. When 
I bent to kiss the hot, eager lips and fore- 
head that waited for me on the pillow, he 
held me a moment, and then said, "Yes, you 



A SOUI^'S LOVE LETTER 1 45 

must go, dear. I forgot again and talked 
too much. 'Twas all jumbled up, too; but 
did you hear, Mabel, when I said that all 
men love love, and hate hate? The whole 
thing only amounted to that anyway; don't 
ever forget it — now go. Good night." 

Quiet, but with wide open eyes, I lay on 
my bed a long time that night, thinking. 
How transparent things appear, sometimes, 
when we step aside and focus the mind 
upon them? How strange it was that the 
world could ever make me forget who I 
was! But when you're out of it, the belts 
fly and the wheels hum, and you just for- 
get, that's all. What a strange thing it all 
was? — so unreal, so unsatisfying, yet we 
hugged it so. And I wondered if I should 
ever forget again — like the rest' — they go 
so fast — they push, they trample — but deep 
down, love, love — love. 

The sun was streaming into the room, 
making leafy shadows over the basket quilt 
that covered the bed, when I awaked. I 
listened to the sounds within and without 
doors to determine the hour. It must be 
nine o'clock, I thought. Martha was placing 
the milk pans and pails on the long board 



146 A soul's love letter 

near the door of the summer kitchen. The 
man was already in the field plowing, and 
calling fretfully to the horses when the plow 
struck against a root or stone. Huge, crude, 
lumbering John — deep down did he have a 
rudimentary love of love, and hate of hate? 
Out came Martha again, whistling snatches 
of ragtime — buxom, hearty Martha, joking 
and flirting with John in her harum-scarum 
way — does she, too, stand for love of love, 
and hate of hate? The doctors carriage 
halted at the gate, and dressing hurriedly I 
met him in the hall as he was leaving. 

"Your father seems better, girl, in many 
ways since you came home," said the good 
man; "but there isn't much to build on; the 
heart's weak, you know; he and I are both 
pretty well done for — seen our best days — 
not much like when I brought you to them, 
a morning like this, years ago. I've boys and 
girls all around the country; brought 'em 
first, and then took 'em through the mumps 
and measles and whooping cough — ought 
to know 'em from start to finish. Never ex- 
pected to see you so well and rugged. Well, 
I've got to be jogging," said the do6lor, look- 
ing at his watch. "Sam Bowen's boy stepped 



A soul's love letter 147 

on a rusty nail last week; got a pretty bad 
foot out of it. Over at Mile's they've got 
scarlet fever." Then with a cheery "Good 
morning," he drove away down the hill, his 
old buggy clattering over the stony road. 

The morning had the fresh, frosty touch 
of April in it. I caught up a shawl from the 
hall and walked about for some time, noting 
the silent influences at work preparing for 
later exhibitions of triumph in creation. Ar- 
thur, do you really think there are those who, 
in all the years, never feel the rare touch of 
Nature as I felt it that morning? How 
poor must be the soul like that! 

When I returned to the sickroom, I found 
my father, as the do6tor had said, brighter 
and more hopeful than he had been for days. 
It was towards evening that he appeared 
drowsy and asked to have the room dark- 
ened. The great transition was at hand. In 
the morning when I was alone in the hushed 
room and took that cold, unresponsive hand 
in mine, I breathed softly the words, "All is 
well — all is well!" Another life that had 
touched my own closely had gone out — 
gone away — Gone — gone, we say as we 
reach out like babies. How limited! How 
limitless! The Universe! Eternity! 




*'As I walk, solemnly, unattended. 
Around me I hear that eclat of the world- politics 
produce, 
The announcement of recognized things, science. 
The approved growth of cities, and the spread of 
inventions, 
I see ships (they will last a few years). 
The vast factories, with their foremen and workmen. 
And hear the endorsement of all, and do not obje6l 
to it." 

ERE I writing a story, Ar- 
thur, I could weave in ever}^ 
thing beautiful, and make 
everybody good and happy, 
but reality is always more 
strange and relentless than fiction. 

Four weeks had passed since my father 
fell asleep dreaming of love, and now they 
put into my hand a tiny bit of paper. 
Only twelve thousand dollars; but a mil- 
lion broken things, hideous and misshapen, 
were represented by that innocent scrap 
that lay before me. I crushed it tightly 
to see if drops of blood oozed between 
my fingers — no blood appeared. 

My plans for the future were soon re- 
solved upon. I would go out to see, to feel, 
to know the world of men and women. I 
would place my finger upon the pulse of 



H9 

fevered humanity — find a cure for civiliz- 
ation — be another fanatic let loose upon 
the planet. Audacit}^! Think of it! To 
wander alone about battlefields strewn all 
over with bleached bones, cannons and 
crosses. To push a woman's face against 
the loaded guns. But then, some things 
are safe b}^ reason of their very insignifi- 
cance, as mice, they tell us, escape from 
burning buildings unhurt, or tiny birds that 
flit all round dangerous places unnoticed 
and uninjured. 




"I see the menials of the earth laboring, 

I see the prisoners in the prison, 
I see the defective human bodies of the earth, 
I see the blind, the deaf and dumb, idiots, hunch- 
backs, lunatics. 
I seethe ranks, colors, barbarisms, civilizations — I 
go among them — I mix indiscriminately. 
And I salute all the inhabitants of the earth." 

VEN so I went, even so I 
mixed, even so I saluted all 
the inhabitants of the earth. 
I worked with them, I sat 
with them, I felt with them, 
I learned from them. I climbed rickety stairs. 
I descended into cellars and basements, and 
as I worked my way deeper and deeper into 
human life I became ever more and more 
conscious of the staggering needs facing the 
children of men. In sweatshops and smoky 
kitchens I took my place, and, oh! how I 
grew in love and compassion. I stood long 
hours behind counters in great department 
stores, wearing the perfunctory smile in fear, 
but here rested the difference — I was free. 
To an atomical student, dissecting a dead 
body is revolting enough, but to be chained 
to a putrid carcass as were these — whew! 
— les miserables. And let no man think the 



A soul's love letter 151 

haggard, pinched, ungroomed bodies of the 
working men or women indicate indelicacy 
of feeling or so much inferior human stuff 
of head and heart. As I know men and 
women, plebian and patrician are dipped 
originally out of the same vast reservoir. 
Manicuring doesn't count. 

Problems, problems! Everyway we turn, 
up before us stands some sphynx, looking 
frank and solemn, saying: ^^Read my secret." 
Economic problems, race problems, sex 
problems — too much talked about — all cried 
out: "Read my secret! read my secret!" I 
wandered on, questioning, testing, waiting. 

Many months and many miles were be- 
tween me and that time and place over two 
years before when my father said, "Mabel 
remember deep down all men love love, 
and hate hate." What had I found? How 
had I changed? Not at all, only the old 
glamor was gone. The far away, the great 
things, had been brought near and handled. 
The poor and despised things had been lifted 
up, and scratching the surface of each and 
all, I found — myself. Humanity was indeed 
a solid, a unit, rising or falling together. On 
the one hand perverse collar-buttons, damp 



152 A soul's love letter 

salt-cellers, bread and butter struggles — 
hideous Mr. Hydes; on the other soul-stirring 
music vibrating in serene love atmospheres 
— joyous Dr. Jekylls. Savage or escaped 
felon, do you not from ambush or hiding 
place sometime look up in awe and prayer 
to the immensity of silence and stars? I 
know you do. I am you — you are me — 
give me your hand. The source of life is 
One. So, and even more so, I grew to feel 
toward the men and women I met. Mys- 
tically mingled gold and dross, animal and 
angel — bondmen forever — rushing along 
out there to and fro through space in eter- 
nity. Never a moment anywhere but want- 
ing to be somewhere else. Never having 
so much but they wanted more. God pity! 
Not very far from me the best; not very far 
away the worst. They were me — my very 
self indeed. 

That day, in a distant land, I reached an- 
other climax. In the old weary way I threw 
myself down and looked off over the city 
and the river, to the distant blue hills, and 
beyond. 

Yes, it was true. Deep down men did 
love love, and hate hate, and on this hung 



A SOULS LOVE LETTER I 53 

all the law and the prophets. Something 
seemed to say, "Go back, child. You have 
seen the ruins of Tyre and Carthage; you 
have wept in Galilee and Gethsemane, but 
there is that which shall outlive cities and 
sorrows, it is the leaven of love down deep 
working in the human heart, bringing about 
the liberty of love at the end of ages.'" 




''You must be just before, in fine, 
See and make me see, for your part. 
New depths of the Divine." 

OU know very well, Arthur, 
the rest of my story. Child- 
ren of two hemispheres, we 
met. All that wealth and 
culture could give left you 
still hungry; all that discipline and denial 
could do left me still expectant. In cap and 
gown you found me going about softly, bind- 
ing up bruised and broken bodies, and that 
was well. But w^onders never cease in the 
realm of spirit — you came, and that was 
better. I awoke, and that was best. Other 
daughters should be raised up to carry cups 
of water to moisten fevered tounges. I must 
go out there where souls were afevered and 
thirsting for the water of life. 

Lo, 'twas a great day — my day! The 
message of the little farm girl, who wept 
alone for a sickened, selfish world, burst 
forth at last ! It was simply the old love 
story that men, through all the ages, had 
been struggling to externalize in art and in- 
stitutionalism. But the later message spoke 
of more than love and truth and beauty in- 



A SOULS LOVE LETTER I 55 

herent at the heart of all things. It discussed 
ways and means of realization, and feared 
not: — 

A new transition time was now at hand 
— foices were falling into line. As slav- 
ery had given place to feudalism, and 
feudalis7n to capitalism^ so in turn capi- 
talism was to be replaced by Socialism, 
In a relieved economic state, with mutual 
obligations and advantages for all, should 
the great co-operative aggregation usher 
in 7nore quickly the riper day of TRUE 
INDIVIDUALISM, made perfea in a 
voluntary federation of the world. Away 
with a p7'ofit system that brutalizes men 
and prostitutes women — then stones the 
wo7nen and kills off the men in commer- 
cial warfare! Call to mind the Great 
Non-Resister who drove out money-chang- 
ers, but said to another, "Neither do I 
condemn thee, go, and sin no more!' 

Small wonder it was that the multitudes 
waited, listening for the voices of prophets 
crying in the wilderness; and when they 
heard, responding cried, "Refresh us again, 
for we do faint.'' The world had grown very 



156 A soul's love letter 

weary with slums and shambles — with the 
wailinofs of women and little children in the 
market places, while many ran to and fro 
and knowledge didn't increase very fast. 
High time it was for men to much marvel; 
due time for murmurings to go abroad of 
race solidarity and brotherhood. Pruning- 
hooks, plowshares and peace, against swords, 
sabres and strenuosity every time. 

When heads have bumped up against 
some little abstra6l things like love and jus- 
tice long enough, comes a realization that 
principles possess weight and dimensions 
just as surely as stocks, stones and Stand- 
ard Oil. Yes, humanity can be trusted. It 
will not eat husks for long when there is 
enough and to spare at the old home. In 
pursuit of happiness? The world is large 
enough for blessedness. 

And to think we have lived to see the 
larger day breaking ! To take our place 
and work together! 

What would one have?— LIFE! 

The accounts balance — close the ledger? 
lock the desk, go home and rest till the 
morrow cometh, when new strength shall 
be given for the new task. 




''Developed whence shall grow spontaneously 
New churches, new economics, new laws 
Admitting freedom, new societies 
Excluding falsehood ; He shall make all new." 

HAT a long letter I have 
written! Since its commence- 
ment, early spring has passed 
along into midsummer. Many 
many times have I wished 
you were with me here, meditating and 
refreshing, while the life-processes unfold 
more and more abundantly about me. With 
you here joy would be almost complete. 
Often I lie down on the ground and 
watch the little creatures chasing about in 
the soft mould, among leaves and grasses. 
I wonder if their schemes 

"Gang aft aglee 
And leave them naught but grief and pain 
For promised joy." 

A small world is theirs to us, Arthur, 
but perhaps great God-like creatures are 
looking in on us, as we disport ourselves 
in and out, among the timber of this earth. 

Yesterday I broke a milkweed stalk, to 
see the creamy sap gush out profusely. 



158 A soul's love letter 

Rich Nature! And today I broke a spray 
of blackberry bush, which always reminds 
me of the bride in white waiting for the 
bridegroom. 

Yes, so we met. And you said we two 
part not again. And here we stand, in the 
year of our Lord nineteen hundred and four 
— two tiny soul centers — talking of love 
and the deep things — children prattling — 
brooks babbling — waves talking to each 
other along the shore. 




*'For narrow creeds of rig^ht and wrong which fade 
Before the unmeasured thirst for good ; while peace 
Rises within them more and more. 
Such men are even now upon the earth, 
Serene amid the half formed creatures round, 
Who should be saved with them and joined with 
them." 

OW my letter is finished, I 
come back — back to the 
world and work — back 
where men throw themselves 
under Juggernaut cars, mis- 
sing the meaning. But rest secure. At the 
center, lixed firmly into the innermost na- 
ture of things, rests the germ necessary for 
corre6ling all errors. Everything shall re- 
turn and renew, and that on forever. We 
are building but one step of the stairs lead- 
ing up to the Altar — let our foundation be 
placed on the rock and not on a slippery 
place. In coming days, as in our own day, 
breakers and builders shall be raised up as 
necessity demands; precedent and prejudice 
reign but for a while — then come upheav- 
als and rendings asunder. The poor world 
all lacerated and grown weary to very heart- 
break, welcomes the new poet, prophet. 



i6o A soul's love letter 

artist, great soul who, gathering together 
the scattered fragments of the imperisha- 
ble, gives out other poems, sermons, pic- 
tures, systems, for men to live by for a 
season. 

Where shall the limitless end? What 
shall be the morning? To look off into 
the future, and see men still forming and 
destroying, like little children playing in the 
sand, tests trustfulness and patience for the 
moment. 

Still the voice says: "Not in time or 
space, but within lies the land you seek — 
the land of promise — Behold! Be." 

And beholding, I cry aloud, "Oh Lord, 
my soul breaketh, for the longing that it 
hath for Thy judgments at all times." 



